Trust: Technology's No-Way Street

Whatever happened to trust? Here's Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer talking to analysts and reporters on July 25, after the company had signed an SEC consent order prohibiting it from misrepresenting its financial results: "Our values: Integrity and honesty is number one, full stop."

Oops! Two weeks later, the company agreed to another consent order, forbidding outright misrepresentations the Federal Trade Commission found in Microsoft's claims about security, privacy, and parental controls in its Passport service.

Where Microsoft leads, the industry follows. In an era in which corporate balance sheets arouse derision, it's tough to trust the titans of technology. Instead of inspiring confidence, their corner-cutting practices--in everything from quality to support--provoke suspicion and resentment.

Take the cell phone industry. It knows where your handset will work and where calls will die. It just won't tell you. Among the always-overoptimistic coverage maps, my favorite is the Verizon site's rendition of the United States in an uninterrupted bright red labeled "National SingleRate Rate Area"; below the map is tiny type stating that "the mapped territory contains areas with no service." Right: like the majority of them.

When Hewlett-Packard got caught misstating the number of colors some of its PDAs could display, the company quickly offered refunds. But when Palm recently had the same problem with its Palm M130, it initially offered merely excuses. Only after a class-action lawsuit arose did the company do the right thing.

I've written elsewhere about Microsoft's outrageous policy of selling products with bugs long after they've been patched; as I write, the Windows XP that you get with a PC or buy in a box is still the original, forcing you to download and install dozens of megabytes of fixes. Too bad if you thought you were getting the newest bits and you have only dial-up access.

Mac users are hardly immune. Apple charges a stiff $129 to upgrade to Mac OS X version 10.2. You get $110 off if you bought a Mac with an older version after the new one was announced, but not if you bought it so much as one day before. This kind of manipulation never seems to rile the Mac faithful.

Do smaller companies compete on integrity? Linux upstart Lindows.com recently claimed flatly on its Web site that "With LindowsOS installed, you will not need a copy of Microsoft Windows to run Windows software"--a total whopper. Later, Lindows said that the only "certified" apps were parts of Office 2000--though when I tried them, they didn't exactly work well.

And when you can't trust tech companies, it's partly because they don't trust you. A perfect example: the user-hostile "activation" software built into the latest versions of Office and Windows to thwart piracy. Microsoft treats all its customers as if they were rotten apples.

Depressing: In the tech world, trust has become a no-way street.

Contributing Editor Stephen Manes has written about PCs for nearly two decades and was cohost of the public television series Digital Duo.