Gates says security is priority

Stephen Cole:
Do you think Microsoft underestimated the threat of not just viruses but all kinds of attacks on Microsoft over the last two years? In other words, did you underestimate the value of security?
Bill Gates:
Certainly you can never underestimate the level of malicious people out there who are going to try to take advantage of whatever things there are.
That's why we made trustworthy computing the top priority.
Certainly we can always do better. It's the top priority
Bill Gates, Microsoft chairman
If somebody had predicted two years ago that we would have hundreds of millions of people connected to our auto-update and immediately getting those improvements - including over 100,000,000 who got full updates for SP2 (Service Pack 2) - I don't think people would have believed that.
It's really only because we've made that our top priority that people really understand that having that turned on really gives them a very high level of safety.
Stephen Cole:
Nevertheless, a lot of our viewers still say to us: 'Microsoft didn't take that threat seriously enough and we are having problems.'
Bill Gates:
Certainly we can always do better. It's the top priority. If you look at things like spam, we feel very good about the progress there. If you look at the progress on just making sure that you don't have to do things manually it's very dramatic.
There is a lot more to do. With the computing experience you don't achieve full potential if you're having to worry about something like security.
So that's our commitment to people. We'll make sure that's not holding people back in terms of getting these great new experiences.
Stephen Cole:
Are you a victim perhaps of your own success? Being the biggest, you are always going to be under attack.
Bill Gates:
And we're always able to do the best R&D, the best innovation, get the best partnerships.
Certainly our position is one that people envy.
Stephen Cole:
Will updated security be a major feature of Longhorn?
Bill Gates:
Certainly. Longhorn's an advance really across the board - the way we exploit the hardware, the richness we've built in.
Longhorn is a super important release for us because it takes all the feedback we've received from users over a number of years and lets us do something dramatic to address anything they want.
Stephen Cole:
When do you expect to see it issued?