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Not really. Once you get a reputation for having buggy, non-secure software, it takes a long time to overcome that.

Common sense tells you that MS products are attacked more than others because they are the dominant applications. The more dominant, the more hackers are interested in breaking it.

If Mack's were as dominant we would be talking about them.

I refuse to use a Betamax when VCR's are the norm. The same goes with operating systems and anything else.

MS will never be spared attacks as long as they are on top. It goes with the territory, and it is everyones responsibility to prevent them, not just MS.

Common sense tells you that MS products are attacked more than others because they are the dominant applications.

That's partially true. The other piece to that is that hackers will attack systems that give them a good chance to defeat.

For example, last I knew, the majority of Web Servers on the Internet run Linux and Apache. However, most of the attacks we hear about are on systems running Micrsoft IIS. Common sense will tell you that the reason for that is because IIS is easier to circumvent.

I work as a developer. It is important for my software company to gain the trust of the users of our product. If we have a buggy release, this negatively impacts the trust in our software the users have. Once this happens, even if we fix all of the bugs, users will tend to believe there is a problem with our software whenever they encounter a result they didn't expect. It takes a long time before they start believing in the software again.

It is no different for Microsoft. They have the reputation of being buggy and not secure. They will have to work very hard to overcome this image.

Common sense tells you that MS products are attacked more than others because they are the dominant applications.

Actually, common sense tells you that the more buggy the software the more bugs will be found. Anything else is wishful thinking.

While the theory that the more popular a piece of software is the more it will be exploited is often put forward but has been regularly and thoroughly debunked.

Apache is the most popular web server, yet it is exploited less than Microsoft's Internet Information Server.

Sendmail is the most popular mail server, yet it is exploited less than Microsoft's Exchange Server.

Microsoft software is exploited more because it has more bugs.