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Re: Vista is Dead here comes Windows ME Too

  • Subject: Re: Vista is Dead here comes Windows ME Too
  • From: Rex Ballard <rex.ballard@xxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 21:31:41 -0700 (PDT)
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On May 28, 9:59 pm, Ian Hilliard <nos...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> <quote>
> Vista is Officially Dead Here Comes Windows 7
>
> By David Richards | Wednesday | 28/05/2008
> When a Company starts talking about the next model in their line up you know
> something is wrong particularly if the previous model has been labelled a
> lemon. Now it appears that the Windows Vista era is done and dusted with
> Microsoft keen to move onto Windows 7 in an effort to overcome the problems
> that the ill fated Vista OS will leave behind.

When Microsoft starts announcing Vapor-ware less than 18 months after
the release of their latest release, you know they know they have a
bomb and need to do damage control.  As usual, the announcement is
being carefully timed to try and give Microsoft as much bargaining
leverage as possible during their annual negotiations with the top
OEMs.  In addition, many corporate customers have service contracts
that are about to expire, and these companies may opt for perpetual
use "per employee" licenses, which means that Microsoft gets no more
revenue from them.

But lets look at some of the previous vaporware efforts of Microsoft.
In 1987, Digital Research was offering an MS-DOS compatible operating
system with true multitasking, and GEM offered a multitasking Windows
environment.  Unix was also gaining popularity, especially as the
Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, and .  Microsoft announced that MS-DOS 4.0
would have multitasking instead of TSRs.  It didn't even get close to
true multitasking.  About all they really delivered was an interrupt
that COULD be used to switch from one TSR to another, which nobody
wanted to use.  Microsoft didn't deliver true useful preemptive
multitasking until Windows NT 4.0, nearly 10 years after the promised
multitasking.

Windows 1.0 through 3.0 were technical and business disasters.
Windows 3.0 got Windows onto the desktop of new 80386 users, but
Microsoft was facing competition from Unix, especially Sun
workstations and Dell's SCO powered desktop machines.  Sun had
captured 15% of the corporate workstation market, and SCO was in every
fast food franchise, it was also in every stock brokerage that was a
member of the NASD.  X11r4 had been released, and the standard was
creating a popular framework.  In addition, SCO had OpenDesktop, which
included many of the features we now associate with Microsoft Office.

Microsoft released 3.1 and almost immediately, it became appearant
that it wasn't good enough, so Bill Gates speaking as the Keynote
speaker at the Consumer Electronics Show the year Windows 3.1 was
released, announced Windows "New Technology" and he promised that NT
would be "A better Unix than Unix".  Even Windows XP doesn't have most
of the features found in SunOS 4.0 and SCO OpenDesktop, that was
almost 10 years later.

Windows NT 3.1 was released and was a horrible bomb.  The cost of
making the switch was huge, several times the price of the computer
itself, and the NT 3.1 system was pretty much incompatible with most
3rd party Windows 3.1 and WFW applications.  Worse, NT was almost 2
years later than promised, and by the time it was finally released,
there were other competitors in the wings, including SLS Linux, Novell
UnixWare, IBM OS/2, Red Hat Unix, and SCO Unix for desktops.

So Bill announced "Chicago", which later became known as Windows 95.
The biggest features, other than being "NT Lite", was plug-n-play,
which was an attempt to emulate a feature that Linux had introduced in
the fall of 1994, nearly 1 year before Microsoft introduced it in
Windows 95 (in August of 1995).

> This is not the first time that Microsoft has had problems with its
> operating system, there was Windows Me. Now Bill Gates and Microsoft CEO
> Steve Ballmer have teamed up to spruik Windows 7 and its all-new user
> interface. At the D: All Things Digital conference in the USA the pair
> overnight gave a hint of what is to come.

So again, we have Microsoft hyping vapor-ware.

> During a brief onstage demo of Windows 7, a Microsoft software designer made
> the puzzling choice to unveil a new "multi touch" feature by working with a
> paint program, evoking memories of the original Macintosh paint program in
> 1984. She then used the touch-sensitive technology with a photo collection
> and a mapping program, evoking comparisons to both the iPhone and Google
> Maps, which already have similar capabilities.

Another classic example of Microsoft attempting to tout other people's
technology, as their own "Innovations".  Unfortunately, this time,
Microsoft is attempting to claim "ownership" of technology that their
competitors have been using for years.  But this time, it's technology
which has been used by hundreds of millions of users who know the
competitor products, so Microsoft claiming it as "Innovation" really
doesn't help.  The fact that users have been able to do this with Java
applications and applets, and flash displays, on Windows XP isn't
going to help Microsoft make an overwhelming argument for it's vapor-
ware.

> Another new feature appeared to be a circular pop-up menu that provided
> a "concierge" function. (You can watch a video of the multi touch feature
> on the Microsoft Vista blog). Microsoft says it will provide some details
> about Windows 7, the successor to Windows Vista, at its Professional
> Developers Conference in Los Angeles in late October.
> </quote>

Again, this is another "ho-hum" function.  Linux has lots of tools to
better facilitate huge assortments of applications, and to keep them
organized on multiple virtual desktops, with or without the rotating
"Cube".

Some things Microsoft could put in that would make it exciting:

    A Unix based kernel, Microsoft got the rights from SCO, so they
can do it now.
    Virtual Desktops - Xerox owns this, but it might be worth
settling.
    Better support for Multiple OS options including:
        Partition managers that let you shrink existing partitions.
        Support for running as Xen Client.
        Support for running as a client to Unix or Linux.

> http://www.channelnews.com.au/Hardware/Software/T8A5Q4P4


> Ian


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