MS Patch Management: Isn't That An Oxymoron?

John Foley of Information Week just wrote an article about how Microsoft's strategic plan to make a software product for patch management, is slightly delayed. (See, "Microsoft Patch-Management Product Delayed By Windows XP Work")

Now, I must admit I read the first two lines of his article and chuckled. I stopped reading and immediately started to write this article.

It's just ironic that MS has to build a software engine so its business customers can manage the patches to Microsoft's other software.

Let us be perfectly clear about this. A patch is a code change to a published software program that fixes a known bug. A bug is an error in the logic of a program that prohibits it from performing as designed.

An enhancement program, such as a Patch Management Server, which is what MS is talking about, is a software program aimed at allowing you to better manage your poorly designed, bug-ridden piece of software.Logic forces me to ask this next question. If Microsoft is so bug ridden that it needs to write a piece of software just to manage the software patches it writes to re-write its bug ridden software, why am I to assume the Patch Management Software won't be, itself, bug ridden?