Imagine the surprise. Once again, 'security' is used an an excuse to promote business agenda, defend a monopoly, and 'extend' standard functionality. Remember the days when Linux and Mac users were said to require premium editions of Windows Vista just to be allowed to virtualise it? Here is Microsoft's explanation:

Microsoft says that it originally considered banning Vista on virtualization systems because of concerns it has about security. Apparently AMD and Intel have built virtualization hooks into their CPUS. While the aim of this was to allow virtualization to work better, Microsoft claims that it created a security flaw.

The question to ask here is this: if it is not secure, why impose a 'tax' on virtualisation? What will the difference be if an Edition with fewer features disabled get used? It was rather obvious at the time what was going on. Associated Press cited business reasons, not security.

Mystified yet? Now comes this from Microsoft-Watch:

Something stinks in Redmond, and it's yesterday's Microsoft Security Advisory #937696. I hate when Microsoft uses--or appears to--security as an excuse to accomplish some other objective.

[...]

Sorry, but I see MOICE and so-called security concerns about Office binary files as a Trojan Horse for OOXML, which its own Trojan Horse. As I explained on Thursday, OOXML is much more than a file format. Microsoft has platform ambitions for OOXML, as the company seeks to advance business intelligence and other initiatives.

Wonderful! And why was Novell supporting OOXML again? It's time to wake up and smell the coffee.