Microsoft Windows are breaking
p2pnet news | Products:- That sound you hear? It’s windows breaking.
Microsoft Windows, that is.
And things will only get worse unless Microsoft pulls its metaphorical finger out, warn two analysts.
Microsoft, “must make radical changes to its operating system or risk becoming a has-been,” said Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald at a Gartner-sponsored conference in Las Vegas.
Bill and the Boyz haven’t responded to the market which is, “overburdened by nearly two decades of legacy code and decisions,” they say according to Computerworld.
“For Microsoft, its ecosystem and its customers, the situation is untenable,” said Silver and MacDonald.
Among other things, Windows’ rapidly-expanding code base makes it virtually impossible to quickly craft a new version with meaningful changes, says the story, going on, “That was proved by Vista, they said, when Microsoft – frustrated by lack of progress during the five-year development effort on the new operating – hit the “reset” button and dropped back to the more stable code of Windows Server 2003 as the foundation of Vista.”
Windows’ “monolithic nature” not only makes it tough to deliver a worthwhile upgrade, but threatens Microsoft in the mid- and long-term, state Silver and MacDonald, says Computerworld, continuing >>>
Users want a smaller Windows that can run on low-priced – and low-powered – hardware. And increasingly, users work with “OS-agnostic applications,” the two analysts said in their presentation. It takes too long for Microsoft to build the next version, the company is being beaten by others in the innovation arena, and in the future – perhaps as soon as the next three years – it’s going to have trouble competing with Web applications and small, specialized devices.
The way to go, suggested the Gartner duo, is virtualization under which they envision, “a very modular and virtualized world” with a “hypervisor” as standard on client as well as server versions of Windows.
“An OS, in this case Windows, will ride atop the hypervisor, but it will be much thinner, smaller and modular than it is today,” the said, adding:
“Even the Win32 API set should be a module that can be deployed to maintain support for traditional Windows applications on some devices, but other[s] may not have that module installed.”
Computerworld – Windows is ‘collapsing,’ Gartner analysts warn, April 10, 2008
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April 11th, 2008 at 10:27 am
The Problem for Microsoft is 3 ways:
First Linux demonstrate that you can do every thing that window 2K Xp and Vista do and more with a lot less code and a lost less resources.
Second with Vista, microsoft, stupidly caving to the content industry bullies entered into DRM hell. DRM is bureaucracy for computer and is so intricated and combersome that it is very difficult to make it bug free and efficient. The result is Vista a big piece of coding crap, unsecure and still easily kackable.
Third we reached a limit in clock speed at arround 2GHZ preventing the computer to go very much faster. The only thing that can still increase for now is the level of integration and the speed of the RAM. So with a Quad core you will get a speed increase of only 3 time at best. Not very significant. Vista is an attempt to make your computer obsolete not by taking advantage of a faster hardware but by changing the standard. Well people are not going for it specially since the new standard are infested with DRM.
In short our old machines are better and faster than the new one because it carry no DRM. So why bother changing?
April 11th, 2008 at 10:46 am
However I don’t believe that computer OS and application will either compete with online applications (With the execption of databases applications for publicly available information of course the meet of internet and networks) Why should I bother with internet to correct a picture write a letter or plot a spread sheet?
Specialized devices are just what they are: Specialized.
So they are pointless compare to a full blow computer.
By trying to be more portable they made themselves less useful.
The minimum size is arround a small laptop. Anything below is not very useful even if it has the same processing power.
Computer will get very small once one can get read of the keyboard and the screen not before.
The real competitor of Windows are OSX and of course Linux and not the Internet or the specialized devices.
April 11th, 2008 at 11:27 am
[quote=Reader's Write] Computers will get very small once one can get rid of the keyboard and the screen; not before. [/quote]
I agree. Game consoles, hard-drive ghosts, and independent DVD burners are basically specialized computers, but a full blown computer that is much larger can be built to be much more powerful at the same price.
Microsoft has very little hope for existing in the future. They can only survive by shutting out Bill Gates and the others completely, getting rid of the content industry bullies, getting rid of DRM, and getting rid of the closed standards that they have set up. It is unlikely that they will ever do that.
April 11th, 2008 at 11:54 am
In my opinion, Windows started going down hill when Microsoft stopped thinking of it as something a computer needs to run third party software and started thinking of it as *THE* software people wanted to run.
April 11th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Hehe, windows went south after 3.1
April 12th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Hehe, windows went south after 3.1. Actually no. Windown 95 was actually beating the mac OS of the time and is still a decent OS for today. I believe that window went south on 98 and Me, recovered big time with window 2K and XP and now is broken again with Vista. The problem for Microsoft is that LInux is now in part with windows for ease of instalation and offer more power for significantly less resources than windows. Try Umbutu and Umbutu 64. You can test it from a CD rom. It will run slower since CD are a lot slower than HD although not that slow and useful after the initial startup (Still very fast considering that it is actually an instalation!) but it give you a very good idea of how it work. (Once installed on the HD this think is zooming even on a low power computer!)
Try it!
April 12th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
The problem is that Windows is the standard that most all software is written to run on. Sure, you can find Linux equivalents for most productivity software and use WINE (and others?) to run most Windows applications, but you can’t just go into a store and buy Linux software. Not to mention that most games won’t run at all on it and like it or not, people like to play games on their computers.
As for the software you can get, most comes as source files that have to be compiled by the user. A process that often involves making sure that you have at least three other software packages installed to support the main program, and that you set a bunch of options before compiling.
Not to mention that the Unix/Linux philosophy seems to be “Never do in one step what you can do in two or more”. On other systems, people are constantly working to make better archive programs while the *nix community is happy to still use Tar and Gzip, a two-step process to accomplish what other programs do in one. Then there’s VI, a supposedly powerful editor that is so un-intuitive that nobody can figure out how to use it without having the manual next to them, and even then it makes little sense compared to the way people write.
April 14th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Rekrul, I agree Linux is still not ready for prime time – most games and familiar programs are windows only, sound configuration(even with Ubuntu) SUCKS, and configuration via editing text files will NEVER be acceptable to the general user.
Your other points are a little off, most linux programs can be installed via apt-get if you run ubuntu(apt-get install [program]) The program and all required dependencies will be installed as well.
As for tar.gz, you can unpack in one step with tar zxf tarball.tar.gz, and pack with tar zcf tarballname.tgz [files]. There is also a graphical program called file roller that you can use.
VI is out of the stone age, there are gui programs you can use(gedit is one), or nano if you want an easier to use console based editor. Linux is not a great multimedia OS, but if all someone is going to do is web surf, email, and create word documents Linux can handle that for the casual user.
April 15th, 2008 at 9:23 am
@Rekrul
The problem is that Windows is the standard that most COMMERCIAL software is written to run on. Everywhere you look you find advertisements for overpriced software with DRM and draconian license agreements. Alternative open source software which can do the same job as it’s commercial equivalents are overshadowed and hidden.
Look past the commercial software and you will find that there is more truly great feature rich software for Linux than there is for Windows and 99% of the time they come with a $0 price tag. You won’t find Linux software at a shop because you can legally download it, free of cost.
As for software you can get on Linux, you’re correct that most and pretty much all software come as source files (for the power users who wish to compile their software to suit their setup) but for the average user, Linux distro’s including Ubuntu come with simple to use GUI’s for installing software. Ubuntu for example as an Add/Remove software GUI which categorises software, all you need to do is put a tick in the box next to the software you want, from office, productivity, multimedia and games plus 100′s (if not 1000′s) of other software and hit Apply. All downloading of necessary software and installation is taken care of for you. You can not honestly say finding and installing software is easier in Windows, it just isn’t.
Basically, anyone can use a distro such as Ubuntu without compiling software from source or using a command line, it is all GUI driven, just like in Windows.
VI, who would need to use it? not any casual pc user, they don’t even need to know it’s there, it’s for power users who know how to use it, plain and simple. Forget about it it’s not needed.
Your info is WAY outdated. You owe it to yourself and others to re-learn what you think you know about Linux and it’s software. You talk about Linux with obviously little understanding. You wouldn’t talk about Windows as though we were still in the DOS and Windows 3.1 days now would you? Why talk about Linux from years ago? It doesn’t help anyone.
For anyone interested in Linux, download a LiveCD, burn it to a CD and try it without installing it, it runs complete from the CD and won’t touch your windows installation. You owe it to yourself not to listen to old news of Linux from the past and to experience current Linux for yourself.
I use Kubuntu Linux for web design, graphic design, music recording, video editing, web surfing, emailing, writing documents to send to windows users and playing games. I play commercial and open source games. I can configure Kubuntu in two ways, by using the command line or by completely GUI driven. I choose command line most of the time as it is more productive for me and makes it easier to administer other computers on the network.
Best of all I enjoy the freedom Linux has to offer. I control my pc, not Microsoft, I have the same rights as the developers to use the software in anyway I choose. I am free from spending large amounts of cash on bloated, unstable, non-secure, dictating, and license restrictive software from companies who practice in dodgy business ethics. I can spend that money on better hardware or toys for my kids.
I wanted an OS that is easy to use, free (as in freedom of speech), stable, safe, customisable, a buisness tool and entertainment platform. I can only find that in Linux, windows doesn’t even come close. I used windows for 12 years. Will I be going back to windows? Hell NO!
Microsoft can not be trusted, Windows is not needed. Empower yourself with Linux. Linux itself costs nothing, what have you got to lose?