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Microsoft sees end of Windows era

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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 479205
8/5/2008 12:24 AM
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Microsoft sees end of Windows era

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source : [link to news.bbc.co.uk]

Microsoft has kicked off a research project to create software that will take over when it retires Windows.

Called Midori, the cut-down operating system is radically different to Microsoft's older programs.

It is centred on the internet and does away with the dependencies that tie Windows to a single PC.

It is seen as Microsoft's answer to rivals' use of "virtualisation" as a way to solve many of the problems of modern-day computing.

Midori is believed to be under development because Windows is unlikely to be able to cope with the pace of change in future technology and the way people use it.

Windows worked well in an age when most people used one machine to do all their work. The operating system acted as the holder for the common elements Windows programs needed to call on.

"If you think about how an operating system is loaded," said Dave Austin, European director of products at Citrix, "it's loaded onto a hard disk physically located on that machine.

"The operating system is tied very tightly to that hardware," he said.

That, he said, created all kinds of dependencies that arose out of the collection of hardware in a particular machine.

This means, he said, that Windows can struggle with more modern ways of working in which people are very mobile and very promiscuous in the devices they use to get at their data - be that pictures, spreadsheets or e-mail.

Equally, he said, when people worked or played now, they did it using a combination of data and processes held locally or in any of a number of other places online.

Midori is widely seen as an ambitious attempt by Microsoft to catch up on the work on virtualisation being undertaken in the wider computer industry.

Darren Brown, data centre lead at consulting firm Avanade, said virtualisation had first established itself in data centres among companies with huge numbers of servers to manage.

Putting applications, such as an e-mail engine or a database, on one machine brought up all kinds of problems when those machines had to undergo maintenance, needed updating or required a security patch to be applied.

By putting virtual servers on one physical box, companies had been able to shrink the numbers of machines they managed and get more out of them, he said.
"The same benefits apply to the PC," he said. "Within the Microsoft environment, we have struggled for years with applications that are written so poorly that they will not work with others.

"The real savings are around physical management of the devices and associated licensing," he said. "Physically, there is less tin to manage."

Michael Silver, research vice president at Gartner, said the development of Midori was a sensible step for Microsoft.

"The value of Microsoft Windows, of what that product is today, will diminish as more applications move to the web and Microsoft needs to edge out in front of that," he said.

"I would be surprised if there was definitive evidence that nothing like this was not kicking around," he said.

The big problem that Microsoft faced in doing away with Windows, he said, was how to re-make its business to cope.

"Eighty percent of Windows sales are made when a new PC is sold," he said. "That's a huge amount of money for them that they do not have to go out and get.

"If Windows ends up being less important over time as applications become more OS agnostic where will Microsoft make its money?" he asked.

Anonymous Coward
User ID: 479205 (OP)
8/5/2008 12:39 AM

Re: Microsoft sees end of Windows era

Quote

just to make people aware that they should not invest in windows compatiple software or hardware which needs any special xp or vista machine.

Of course it will take its time, but Microsoft will let Windows drop like a hot potatoe one day, and then you will be forced to buy everything new for Midori OS.

Midori is not Windows and will not be compatible to Office,games,Photoshop and what else you have.
They will make it all "compatible" (read : perform slowly and all virtualized inside a Vistabox or a win7 box ) but that is only for the first versions of Midori.. :

Apple did exactly the same, by first moving Mac OS 9 to a virtual box inside Mac OS X, and now with Leopard all support for OS9 apps is gone.

What MS is planning here will end up in the same way.

Better make the move to Linux now before you are forced to.
the benefits of opensource - nobody will or can force you to upgrade or buy new to stay compatible.

Anonymous Coward
User ID: 428255
8/5/2008 1:12 AM

Re: Microsoft sees end of Windows era

Quote

Quoting: Anonymous Coward 479205

But the article sais Midori will be compatible with Windows drivers.

Anonymous Coward
User ID: 479205 (OP)
8/5/2008 1:24 AM

Re: Microsoft sees end of Windows era

Quote

unlikely.

you can virtualize older OS, old Software but no drivers.

You can - "wrap" a driver :

"wrapped" drivers from foreign OS ( windows is a foreign OS to Midori ) are sometimes working but affects stability and lack features

Example : "ndiswrapper" for Linux lets you use Windows Wireless Drivers to make your WiFi card working on Linux when the built-in native Linux drivers do not support your card.

chances you get basic functionality are great, but when it comes to certain hardware features like powersavings features, hotlugging, newtork-roaming then you are on a lottery.

worst case - you connect to network A, roam to network B and it crashes the OS ( don't forget that Linux is far stabler than Windows XP ), sometimes freezes up, causes kernel-locks and you have to hard-reset and reboot.

Anonymous Coward
User ID: 478418
8/5/2008 5:25 AM

Re: Microsoft sees end of Windows era

Quote

Hey I'm not worried. BG said XP will be supported till, when 2012? That's good enough for me.

Besides, most of my software is old and runs fine for what I need. Most people would find that's the case if they could get over the 'wow' factor.

Some software is older than others becuase they get to a point where they've optimised it as much as they can and then they just add useless bloat because "12% more efficient" just doesn't sell software.

That's the point where I stop upgrading.

whyidontknow Subscriber

User ID: 471651
8/5/2008 5:27 AM

Re: Microsoft sees end of Windows era	Quote
does the new super internet run through windows?? im guessing not?? lol

Anonymous Coward
User ID: 479362
8/5/2008 10:31 AM

Re: Microsoft sees end of Windows era

Quote

does the new super internet run through windows??

im guessing not?? lol

Quoting: whyidontknow

MS was always behind the latest in what people realy were interested, this trend is today the same as it was.

When people used the internet, MS had two OS that were technically able to connect to the worldnet, but there was no Browser available for Win3.x or Win95.

Then they developed a Browser for their early OS, and made it essential by mixing the Win98 Shell with IE4, so people had to use IE - and as a side-effect Windows 98 was bloated,memory-hungry and slow when compared to Win95, although it was still the same OS more or less.

Later in Win2000 and Xp , when people learned that IE is the most insecure thing ever created, MS again missed what people wanted : tabbed browsing ( was around since 95 in opera ) like in FF,opera and others.

Now they created Vista, with a more secure base, IE now capable of tabs,added a handful very appealing features, added handwriting- and speech-recognition, but the underneath OS is what people would call bloat-hell at its best, plus Vista is the most bugged Windows ever with a tendency to not crash, but people see all the day "not responding"..

This hardware-demanding OS comes now at a time, where people want light,underpowered "NEttops" like the asus ee-pc.

As MS cannot deliver any edition of Vista for the new smart mini-laptops, they offer XP.

as I introduced :

MS is always behind all the trends - and Windows is finnished ( read : theres no more bloat to add on top of vista ), so start anew with Midori.. to miss all next future trends.

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