But there will surely be more such scares in the future, and coupled with the interconnectivity of computers via the Internet, computers users will have to be ever more vigilant or become increasingly vulnerable. Companies in the other industries often spend years and sometimes even decades on product development to perfect the product before launching it. The fast paced nature of the IT industry is such that software developers cannot afford this luxury of time. Microsoft goes even further by actually selling beta versions of its more popular softwares, albeit at a lower price. In fact, computer programs are so complex nowadays that it is virtually impossible to ensure that they work as planned on all the countless variations of computer hardware and software in use.
Patches are an inevitable mainstay of the IT industry.
The very same inter-connectivity that opens up the computer to virus attacks also presents a solution. He predicted that broad bandwidth will be prevalent within the next few years and software can be downloaded off the network instead of residing in your hard-disks. The computer hardware leasing industry is now quite established. The main obstacle to a similar service for software is the high costs of broad bandwidth. Once the bandwidth prices come down, the many advantages of software leasing will become more apparent.