On May 24/07, Australia’s Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence, Mr Peter Lindsay MP signed a statement reaffirming the importance of the Australian Department of Defence’s 2000 Enterprise License Agreement and relationship with Microsoft Corporation. The Australian DoD’s relationship with Microsoft also includes commercial and collaborative planning, research and development activities and premier support services.
Lindsay is quoted in the release saying that “Our strategic partnership with Microsoft provides the foundation for the modernisation of Defence’s information systems and business process reform.” At the ceremony, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said: “This agreement underscores how serious we are about working together to help protect Australia’s critical communication infrastructure.”
Microsoft is not generally known in the technology world for high security levels, though they have been investing R&D in a trusted computing initiative. The larger question among security experts is whether Microsoft’s vast resources will succeed in fixing an underlying operating system and application model that haven’t been designed from the outset for top-tier security. The US Defence Department recently issued a report on China’s activities in particular that highlighted the threat of cyber-warfare as a growing aspect of hostilities, and a growing concern.