Microsoft joins with Japan university on security

TOKYO -- Microsoft Corp. and Waseda University, one of Japan's top universities, signed a provisional agreement Monday under which the two will cooperate in training of computer software engineers.

The memorandum of understanding was announced by Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft, to a hall of around 600 students prior to an address in which Ballmer outlined his vision of computing in 10 years.

Specific details of the training program are yet to be worked out, but it will include a course in Windows security, to be offered from April 2004, that will include a series of lectures given by Microsoft Japan engineers. Ballmer also said there will be the possibility of internships at Microsoft for the university's students. The security lectures will deal with Microsoft's Windows platform and other lectures will deal with the structure of the Windows operating system, .Net programming and basic project management skills, according to a joint statement.

The agreement is the first such program agreed by Microsoft and a Japanese university, said Aki Araki, a spokeswoman for Microsoft Japan, in an interview following the event. "Right now there are a lot of companies training people but there are few universities training people on security so we felt we needed to collaborate with a university to raise the (skill) level of security engineers," she said.

Security issues made up one portion of Ballmer's address.

"Today, if you had asked me what is our number one priority as a company, our number one priority to customers is to make our programs more secure," said Ballmer. He mentioned by name the Code Red, Slammer, Blaster and Nimda worms and viruses as examples of problems and said, "(The problems) will require a lot of work by everybody in our industry and by appropriate government authorities to solve."

"People say why don't we just have no vulnerabilities in the software," he said. "That's of course an excellent suggestion but its not just a question of relying on human beings to do a more precise job. It requires an investment in innovation that lets people and helps people write code that has fewer vulnerabilities to start."

"It's a question of building tools that help protect software even if it has vulnerabilities. Today if there is an important building, people don't just put the building out there and hops its OK. They put fences and other protection around the building. We need to build more of that kind of protection into the technology and innovation tools that protect these systems as we go forward. We also need to make sure that when there are problems the effect is small and they can be quickly corrected."

After speaking to the students for around 30 minutes, Ballmer answered questions. Around 200 students submitted questions in advance and from these Microsoft and Waseda chose three students to ask the CEO their questions. As might be expected with questions vetted by Microsoft and the university, they were not hard hitting and none touched on security -- arguably the biggest problem facing Microsoft today.

A question on his vision of computing 20 years down the road did however draw two notable responses from Ballmer.

The first was a prediction that, after being part of civilization for hundreds of years, books printed on paper will be gone.