Microsoft was taking a serious public beating for instability and insecurity of its software, especially Internet Explorer, Outlook and Windows. The company stopped development on several major products in order to put their developers through security training. Since then, the company has developed and released a slew of software security tools and methodologies and somehow turned Microsoft from the butt of every joke in the industry into an organization that s seen as doing it the right way. After the turnaround, Microsoft began to spread to some larger customers, more and more financial services firms, insurance.
Source: https://threatpost.com/ten-years-after-gatess-memo-effects-still-being-felt-011212/76089/