I've been spending this week in Redmond talking with the ACE team about Threat Modeling, the plans for the TAM tool, and some future offerings for software security.  The TAM tool met with a lot of enthusiastic interest around Australia and New Zealand.  The best part is that this is just one part in a larger offering on the horizon to protect your applications. 

Microsoft has had a lot of practice over the past few years in getting security right.  They are now starting to distill that experience, and make it available to the industry.  The new TAM tool is an example of that.  It evolved out of years of experience within Microsoft around how to genuinely secure software applications.  The proof is in, Windows Server 2003 had far fewer bugs than Windows 2000, and IIS 6 has had effectively no security bugs in it.

If you need help with security, or just want some advice on getting started with secure development contact your local Microsoft Rep. They can hook you up with a security advisor or a parter organisation that can help you.  Keep watching this space for more news on some great offerings coming from Microsoft on helping you secure your application development process!