Everyone makes mistakes but Microsoft’s chief operating officer Kevin Turner really did stick his foot in his mouth with this one:

Vista today, post-Service Pack 2, which is now in the marketplace, is the safest, most reliable OS we’ve ever built. It’s also the most secure OS on the planet, including Linux and open source and Apple Leopard. It’s the safest and most secure OS on the planet today. Everything that we’ve learned in Vista will be leveraged in Windows 7, but certainly when we broke a lot of the compatibility issues to lock down user account controls, to lock down the ability to manipulate states and all the things, that was a very painful process for us to grow through, but we had to do it. And the reason that Windows 7 will be successful is because of the pain we took on Vista. Because from a compatibility standpoint, if it works on Vista, it will work on Windows 7. If it doesn’t work on Vista, it won’t work on Windows 7. [emphasis added]

Really?  The most secure operating system on the planet?  Then please explain to me why our fighter jets are not using Windows Vista!   The most secure OS on the planet is NOT made by Microsoft and even the concept of that is completely ridiculous.  I am sure that these guys would really like to have a true competition to see who is more secure:

Integrity 178B (Green Hills Software)

LynuxWorks

PikeOS (Sysgo)

Now I understand what Mr. Turner meant to say, Vista is the most secure consumer OS on the market, but is this something that you really want to try and sell?  Vista is secure (although I would not make the claim of most secure) but if you can’t even get people to buy it how good is it really?  It’s like claiming you are as smart as Einstein but working at Mc Donalds, no one is going to believe you.

Check It Out> Speech transcript via ZDNet