More of the things that people want to do with computers now use the internet rather than a hard drive as a source of applications or to store data. So amorphous is the internet that many in the industry refer to it as “the cloud”. Beside e-mail, photograph archiving and music storage, Google and others offer free online word-processing and spreadsheet applications.

人们使用电脑时更多的是通过网络而非硬件设备来获得应用程序和存储数据。互联网是那样的没有定式，所以与其相关的产业也像天上的浮云没有固定的模式。

Clouds in the sky

白云依旧？

For years Microsoft's Windows logo often appeared against a blue sky with cottony clouds. But the cloud has become one of the company's biggest threats. The operating system matters less when programs can be provided online. Moreover, online software can be delivered to customers more cheaply, there is immediate feedback from users and applications can continually be improved. Those are big advantages over software sold in a box, one version at a time.

多年以来，微软Windows都是以蓝天白云为标志的。不过，现在软件业的不测风云却已成为这家公司最大的威胁。如果用户可以通过网络使用程序，那操作系统就没那么必不可少了。而且，在线的给用户提供软件服务更加便宜，用户对于程序的反馈也更快捷，程序也可以不断更新。这些都使它对于每次一版盒装销售的软件有很大的竞争优势。

In the past Microsoft tied its operating system and applications together by “commingling” the code (and ran afoul of antitrust authorities for doing so). The rise of online applications threatens the primacy of Windows because the network becomes the platform for the software. It does not mean PC operating systems are unnecessary, just that it is increasingly the cloud, and not the PC, that is the launch pad for computing.

过去，微软通过把代码“混合”的方式将其开发的软件与操作系统捆绑销售（这样做与反托拉斯法规相抵触）。由于在线软件用网络作为软件的平台，它的兴起威胁到了Windows至高无上的地位。这并不意味着PC操作系统就没有用处了，只是这一趋势使计算机技术更多地在非PC的设备上找到了用武之地。

This suggests new ways to sell software. Instead of charging for each shrink-wrapped box, firms can sell programs as a service, collecting monthly payments, or giving them away and earning money from advertisements.

这给了人们软件销售途径的新启示。软件公司可以不用再兜售那些紧缩套装软件盒子了，它们可以把软件当成一种服务，按月计费，或者索性免费发布给用户使用，通过相关广告赚钱。

The third difficulty facing Windows and Office is security. Much of the justification for Vista among Microsoft's managers was to improve security. Governments and large businesses had voiced concern about the omnipresence of Microsoft products and a rash of hacks and viruses that exploited holes in the firm's software.

Windows和Office面临的第三大威胁是安全性。微软的经理们之所以要开发Vista的理由之一就是提高操作系统的安全性。由于微软产品非常普及，引发的黑客和病毒利用其软件的漏洞侵害用户安全，政府和大企业用户对此甚为关切。

But there was a big problem. In the past, each new version of Windows was written on top of earlier ones. The code became gangly. It resembled sedimentary rock with the occasional fossil of a long-lost feature or inadvertent vulnerability.

但是，这里有一个严重的问题。过去，Windows的每个新版都是在旧版的基础之上开发的。程序代码就变得越来越腐浊了。它看起来就像是沉积岩，夹杂着灭绝生物的化石和不为人所知的弱点。

Vista was meant to clean up all this debris. Its code was written from scratch—a large part of the reason for its delay. Yet plans for ambitious new features, such as a powerful way of searching the computer and a new method of storing and retrieving files, called WinFS, were cancelled in 2004 when it became apparent the technology was too difficult. Already behind schedule, Microsoft decided to rush out a release. In December, within days of Vista's being made available to businesses, researchers identified security lapses—even though America's National Security Agency helped to harden it. Are there other vulnerabilities? Nobody will know until Vista is more widely used.

Vista的开发目的之一就是要把这些沉渣从操作系统里清除出去。它的代码全都得从头开始写——这也是Vista推迟发布的原因之一。不过，微软还是放弃了一些野心勃勃的新功能，比如WinFS（译注6），按照原来的设想，它将提供强劲的计算机搜索能力同时又是一个存储和检索文档的新途径。2004年在意识到此项技术过于复杂之后，微软选择了放弃。由于进度大大落后，微软决定赶工。然而12月，就在Vista发布给企业用户后没几天，研究人员就指出其有安全漏洞——即便有美国国家安全局帮助微软增强Vista的安全性。Vista会不会有其他的缺陷？在其更广泛普及之前没有人会知道。

No matter how many resources Microsoft pours into making its software secure, some flaws are inevitable. But the company has also been trying to make security a source of revenue. It established a system ensuring that security updates go only to legitimate buyers rather than those with pirated copies. Yet any insecure PC can harm everyone, because all are vulnerable to one Typhoid Mary.

无论微软为软件安全性投入多少钱，瑕疵总是无法避免的。不过，这家公司还企图把安全作为盈利来源。它开发了一个系统，用于保证只有购买合法版权的用户才能获得安全升级，以把盗版软件用户排除在外。然而，面对“伤寒玛丽”（译注7）难保全身而退，有一台不安全的电脑都足以危害到所有计算机。