IIS 'flaws': Microsoft blames the users, the users blame Microsoft - who's right?

Take one portion of Microsoft. Add a generous helping of security. Write an article about the two, and leave to simmer for several hours. No pressure cooker required - you end up with something that gets silicon.com readers hot under the collar. And understandably so.

Just recently, the Redmond behemoth was publicly slapped on its wrists by the influential Gartner Group for providing insecure web server software, even after years of user complaints. But it then took the easy route - it blamed the guy at the end of the food chain, the systems administrator.

Shifting the blame to its customers wasn't a wise thing to do. First of all, sys admins get enough stick from those they work with. The daily stress - often compounded by being under the watchful eye of a grumpy IT manager - is enough to drive a sane IT pro to despair. You can imagine how they greeted a software giant pointing out they could be doing more.

How was the myth of the lazy, Microsoft-using sys admin born in a first place? One reader observed that Microsoft has raised a generation of complacent IT workers because of easy plug-and-play installation. A common call from non-Microsoft users is for sys admins using the software in question, IIS, to raise their game - or choose different software.

But let's save that debate for another time. In all honesty, the lazy sys admin is a myth, as most of us in all types of organisations know.

Is blaming the little guy the answer? In a culture of apportioning blame and huge corporate profits, it isn't surprising we've had dozens of emails and Reader Comments calling on vendors - especially Microsoft - to release programs that work properly.

We know no software is 100 per cent fault free - that's why it needs to be updated regularly, certainly where the internet is involved. At the same time you get human shortcomings.

But in a debate where there's room for improvement on both sides, there's one thing we should remember - ultimately the customer should always be right.