"http://HireMe.geek.nz/" wrote in message
...
Marconi UK : we have stopped making SW transmitters and antennas, our
reason
for being now ... shoddy naval software.

[Source: Article by Neil Mackay, Investigations Editor, *Sunday Herald*
(Scotland), 10 Oct 2004]

The Royal Navy's new, state-of-the-art destroyer has been fitted with
combat
management software that can be hacked into, crashes easily and is
vulnerable to viruses, according to one of the system's designers who was
fired after raising his concerns.

Gerald Wilson, who has 25 years' experience designing naval software,
worked
for Alenia Marconi Systems (AMS) in a joint venture with Bae Systems and
the
Italian company Finmeccanica on the combat system for the Type 45
destroyer,
which will rely on Microsoft Windows 2000. System failure in action, he
says, would leave the ship blind, defenceless, and as good as sunk.

That gives a whole new mean to the old phrase "blue screen of death",
doesn't it?