Microsoft is taking a long, hard look at Linux security. Steve Ballmer is quoted saying, "In the first 150 days of Windows 2000 we had seventeen critical vulnerabilities... The first 150 days of Red Hat 6 -- go check the number, just go check the number. It's five to ten times higher than what we are showing" at the Gartner Fall Symposium.
The figures might have come from a strategy, called "Days of Risk", that Microsoft denies exists. According to reports, the Days of Risk strategy measures the number of days it takes programmers to release a public patch after a vulnerability is revealed and Microsoft intends to prove that, on average, Windows poses less of a security risk than Linux.
Regardless of who is behind the Days of Risk strategy, the question remains that, if Steve Ballmer has really made security a top priority, why does he think that saying, basically, "Your security is worse than mine!" is going to have a positive effect?