[MichaelGG]

I find it hard to believe this is a lack of engineering talent. MS has some extremely talented people and has pushed out some very neat security stuff well before, say, Apple has. I cannot believe MS has people sitting around saying "well darn we just don't know how to fix this bug for 6 months now". There's gotta be more to the story... I hope.

[na85]

What's the alternative explanation?

IE has been a complete debacle since its inception.

[MichaelGG]

Bad management? Thinking HP wouldn't release and putting people on other tasks in prep for Win 10? Not believing they were critical? Some messed up test or compatibility interaction that ended up slipping the release? Anything else interesting? How long do you think these will go unpatched? If they patch them in a week, will you change your opinion to "wow MS has talent but made a mistake"?

Coming to the conclusion that the world's largest software vendor that ships a rather security enhanced OS (how long did it take OSX to add ASLR), shipped plenty of memory analysis/protection features in their compiler, etc. simply lacks the talent to fix a few bugs... Someone screwed up but it's unlikely to be a technical talent issue. You need to update your priors.

PS: IE kicked ass at the beginning. I was rather excited with it around IE3. And let's not forget they invented XHR. It only totally went south once MS's management thought they'd won and disassembled the team. And hey, MS went from the leader in instant messaging (which could easily have been turned into the dominating social network) to buying Skype and dropping the MSN brand. They know how to drop the ball from a management perspective.

[na85]

MSN Messenger was playing catchup to ICQ, they only became a leader by process of elimination when ICQ turned into adware and MSN was the only non-awful contender.

[WalterGR]

So it became successful because it was the best option? I don't think that deserves the dismissive "only became successful because..."

[na85]

The best deep-fried snack is still unhealthy. Being the best in a field of crap isn't much of an accolade.