In last week’s Wall Street Journal, Walter Mossberg highlights security software as a major contributing item to what he calls the “tangle of trial programs and ads” that help make the user’s initial experience with a new Vista PC “irritating” and “a big hassle.” Specifically he blames “the confusing welter of security programs you have to master and update, even on a virgin machine” as one the two main causes (the other being “teaser software and advertisements.”) He later refers to this “welter” as “the security-software mess.” Perhaps that’s an improvement from Windows’ previous “insecurity mess,” but maybe not much of one. A recent Apple TV commercial implies pretty much the same thing.

Mossberg insightfully observes that the overall issue “is a lack of respect for the consumer.” That seems absolutely correct. One of Microsoft’s main problems has always been its lack of focus on its users. On the other hand, Apple’s user focus has always been one of its main strengths. This difference in focus has resulted in significant differences in both ease-of-use and security. When you focus on the user, these two come first. When you don’t, they don’t (to quote directly from our book: “The Mac OS was designed with the user at its primary focus. Among other things, focus on the user means focus on his or her security.”)

Mossberg doesn’t specifically mention the Mac’s security advantage in the article, but he does compare the overall Vista start-up time (on a Sony Vaio) to that of a MacBook, claiming that Vista take 4-6 times as long to start (about 30 seconds versus 2-3 minutes). That’s an amazingly big difference, especially considering you end up with a machine that’s still much more vulnerable from a security perspective!