> Yes, I know which “major computer manufacturer” it is, and no, I’m not telling. This is consistent with longstanding blog policy that companies are not identified in stories, because the point of the story to teach something, not to call out companies for derision.

From the follow-up post: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20220920-00/?p=10...

He genuinely might not know. I worked on a similar incident when our video encoder caused about 30% of a pretty mainstream mobile handset to hard lock when recieving a stream, requiring the battery to be removed to reboot the device.

Neither us nor the OEM ever figured out why. They suspected that it was a weird combination of different bin combinations from different parts, but ultimately we had to change the method of delivering video to stop it happening.

He might not since it comes via a friend. Or he's forgotten since.

Also seems not unreasonable for an employee like him not to specifically name and shame hardware partners. Maybe it'd all be fine, but I wouldn't blame him at all for not wanting to risk it.