Hello, Redmond: London Calling
Given the hysteria in this part of the world over Tom Brady's knee, we barely
noticed that the London Stock Exchange crashed yesterday. Yes, that's right;
the news is shocking -- Tom Brady's out for the season.
No, wait, that's not the news we meant to talk about. What we meant to say
was: Yes, that's right; the news is shocking -- the
London freaking Stock Exchange went down. For almost an entire day. During
a rally.
It might not have the massive impact of Brady's injury, but a whole major stock
exchange going down for a day sounds like a pretty big deal here at RCPU. What's
an even bigger deal, you ask? The fact that some people are blaming
Microsoft for the crash.
Ugh. OK, so maybe it's not fair to blame Microsoft and .NET for the LSE's meltdown.
We really don't know. Right now, probably nobody does. But this is one of those
black eyes that Microsoft -- which had advertised the fact that the LSE picked
its wares over Linux for "reliability" -- just doesn't need.
Maybe this little mini-storm will pass -- or maybe Microsoft really will
end up being officially at fault somehow, in which case partners might have
to field a few questions about just how reliable Redmond's infrastructure is.
Is this a few strained ligaments or a torn ACL for Redmond? We'll see -- but
Microsoft folks have to hope that they'll make out better than Tom Brady.
Posted by Lee Pender on September 10, 2008