"But dumb terminals are HOT HOT HOT!"
Posted on 10/21/2012 7:52:06 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
I doubt that it is the end of Windows. Are corporations really going to throw out billions of dollars of infrastructure, not to mention date, to go with Apple?
NEW YORK CITY -— Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, “Windows is irrelevant.”
Off by just about one half billion pc’s.
Missed by thaaaaaaaat much.
A little music for my dear friends at Microsoft!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDN9y2vTdUs
(The End, by the Doors)
I’m sure Wang and Honeywell reassured rhemselves similarly back in the late eighties.
>> As a visionary for cloud computing and cloud-based software, his words carry weight.
Of course, he has no dog in the fight; he’d gain or lose nothing if he were right, or not.
The line between visionary and self-serving dreamer is often not a bright one.
Marc Benioff is one of obama’s lackeys and in most fundraisers for him in NYC.
Not only that, but Microsoft is now basically ahead of everybody as to where computing is heading. We are heading towards a time, for good and bad, where you can move from one device to another continuing doing whatever you are doing, without missing a beat.
Apple isn’t there and neither is Android.
The most bizarre, self-promoting CEO in existence.
"But dumb terminals are HOT HOT HOT!"
I hear what you’re saying and I don’t know what mistakes Wang and Honeywell that put them on the road to oblivion.
However, one thing Microsoft is doing that many computer companies didn’t, that often led to their demise, is being highly proactive.
Windows 8 is a major UI failure. That’s too bad since they’ve really put in a lot of work on the back end.
Marc Benioff: Windows is dead!
God: Marc Benioff is dead!
“I’m sure Wang and Honeywell reassured rhemselves similarly back in the late eighties.”
We recently replaced the ancient Honeywell thermostat in our house with a new digital Honeywell thermostat. :)
Thanks for that laugh. It's been a long day, and that made me LOL. Did you forget your /sarc tag?
Microsoft was once a major innovator. That was 20 years ago. They haven't been AHEAD of one single curve -- and made a success of their work -- since Ballmer took over. Windows and Office in business use -- where they specifically DO NOT innovate much because businesses don't tolerate change easily -- have allowed the company to survive despite the fact that 90% of their other endeavors have been weak, "me-too" copies of other ideas, offered late and then dropped. XBox is the only notable exception.
I think Windows 8 will do GREAT on handhelds. It's got a lot of attractive characteristics for handhelds.
On business and home PCs it's gonna die the gooey death, even though MS will try to force it down everybody's throat like Vista.
You're welcome to your opinion, of course, as am I, but what do you say we revisit this exchange in 3 or 4 years?
(I anticipate a "your a idiot" post from Captain Obvious hisself, but the truth remains that the bases of the two technologies mentioned are still there!)
Wang and Honeywell produced terminals connected to mainframes. They were supplanted by the PC.
The basic design of the Windows OS is based on the micro kernel architecture designed by David Cutler:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Cutler
But yes, there is still a “MS DOS” shell, but then there are many shells available to control basic functions of the OS.
Apple has and does.
"MS-DOS"? Hell, it's CP/M based!
We will know that Windows has finally at last cut loose from its CP/M roots at the point where it joins the rest of the world and starts using foward-slash '/' in the GUI for a directory separator. It's been available within the system calls since the beginning, because Microsoft was originally a UNIX company (does anyone else remember that far back?).
But to maintain compatibility with CP/M, which used forward-slash for options instead of hyphen, Microsoft decided that MS-DOS would use the backslash '\' for separating directories.
BTW, RockyMtnMan is right about the Win/NT kernel not being MS-DOS based. But no one except us nerds knows or cares about that. The users are the ones that buy the damn computers. And they see back-slashes to this day. For no good reason -- how many users still type command lines that require forward-slash switches? Except in MS-DOS mode?
I'm still waiting, Microsoft. When will you drop CP/M compatibility?
[fingers tapping]
[crickets]
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