Rumor: Windows 10 to become a cloud based OS

Microsoft Windows 10 might become a cloud based operating system (OS) according to a leaked road-map. The road-map shows that Microsoft will no longer release service packs but instead will release major updates every year which also increases the version number of the OS. The next major improvement should be Windows 9, this should bring back the Aero interface in a new form.

This should also be a version in which Microsoft will merge its ARM CPU based Windows RT platform with Windows Phone. This version of Windows could also be the last version of Windows as we know it.

According to the road-map is Microsoft planning to release Windows 10 with heavy cloud support, something Google is currently doing with ChromeOS. This means that many functionality on the computer no longer requires heavy hardware on the client side, lots of processing could be done on the servers of the cloud service.

Currently Microsoft is embedding their Skydrive cloud service in Windows 8, which is for e.g. Office the preferred option to store documents. For users this has the benefit that documents can be accessed from everywhere.

A cloud based OS has the benefit for Microsoft that it will limit piracy. Many parts of the OS will not run on the local computer but require to access the cloud where the actual software is running from. Benefits for users is that they always have up to date software and that they no longer need fast and expensive hardware. But since the rumors say that Windows 10 might be controlled using eyesight, new hardware might be a requirement to actually use the OS.

The roadmap has been posted on a Russian forum by an user of WZOR, the hacking group that was responsible for leaking Windows 7 RTM, Windows 8 RTM and Windows 8.1 RTM before their official release. The group allegedly has access to Microsoft internals which allows them to release software preliminary, this makes the rumor at least interesting.

I worked at Microsoft for the last 3 years in a sales capacity and only failed to generate my lofty sales goal once in 35 months. AND, to add insult to the injury of a low commission, they put me on a performance improvement plan that stated if I missed my goal for a second month that I would be fired. The pressure is incomparable to any other company that I have worked for and I’ve been in the software sales industry for 12 years.
I am rather bitter because only after we entered our last orders for the end of the fiscal year in June (they are now in fy14) they called an impromptu mandatory meeting with 15 minutes notice....where they cut nearly 100 of us loose.
This was in their Irving/Las Colinas location, which is now half empty. I thought I had reached the top of the ladder when i was hired but now i realize that it was anything but that as they beat the hell out of their employees.
It was no easy task selling their s***** software, sub par cloud services and crappy operating systems. They also treat their customers like crap once they have conned them into committing 3 years to an Enterprise Agreement which is hardly worth the cost once consideration is given to hire difficult it is to manage it. I could go on and on about their shady practices and horrible treatment of employees but will just stop here since most people are already privy to this information.

Plus, it is a subscription-based service so once you stop paying you lose the product use rights and the access to the servers in the cloud, though MS keeps it.
If you want to keep things on premise in this day and age, they are going to make you pay through the nose for it. Afterwards, Bill and Mel will just donate that money to communists and terrorists worldwide who would blow up your company with you in it if they had the chance.
I have no qualms admitting that I am better and that I hate them too. my wife tells me that she is thankful because she was sure I would die of a heart attack at my desk before the age of 50 and I have subsequently decided to get out of sales in favor of a tech support position where I will be taking a considerable step back salary wise but may ultimately live longer and get to enjoy my family without constantly being stressed.
I’ve seen how the sausage is made and am too disgusted to ever return to that environment.

Once cloud centered applications become part of the core linux code base, then the code base will spread to the rest of the distributions.

It’s just a natural progression.
You will see cloud centered applications showing up in all the distributions if you want them or not. Sooner or later, the cloud centered ones will outnumber the computer centered ones. At that point, the distribution just becomes a shell for the cloud.

And on the open code thing.
Just because there is source code available, does not mean that that source code was used to compile the precompiled distribution that everyone is downloading to use.

In that respect, I see no more guaranty of security than I do from Microsoft.

Unless you select the source code yourself, and compile it on your own computer, then you have no guaranty of anything. If a major distribution provider is corrupt, and is using two different code bases. One they make public, and one they use to compile their distribution. Then they can put in anything they want without anyone knowing anything about it. Unless you took the program and looked over it at the binary level. Which almost no one does.

"If they do that, I predict it'll be the biggest shot in the arm ever for Linux, and it'll be a cold day in the realm of double hockey sticks before I let Billy Gates grab me by my data."

Sounds like someone is having fun with rumors. First, Microsoft is responding to a market where its biggest competitors do store most people's data on line and smart phones and tablets have become appendages to a remarkable percentage of humans, literate or not.

Second, Linux/Unix/BE/Berkeley OS/Zenix/... are hacks that serve their purpose for proprietary value added resellers. The Apple model has always needed to restrict OEM developers because their business was created to serve a limited market. That is part of why Xerox, which created the Windows environment, knew it couldn't productize it, and sold rights to Apple. Many of the core developers of the “Star” then went to DEC, where there were discussions of the tablet, and working samples almost twenty five years ago.

OpenVMS is certainly solid, but those who worked inside VMS and Windows NT know the truth; Windows beginning with NT is VMS with some embellishments. The number I heard was 600 million dollars for DEC not to sue after Dave Cutler settled permanently at Microsoft. Over thirty years ago, Cutler, whose Marine discipline blended with architectural brilliance, predicted that VMS was clearly the most stable and extensible minicomputer OS, should become the world's standard. DEC couldn't make the transition, like many companies built upon hardware manufacture, and, after two efforts to retrieve Cutler, gave up and worked with him after he moved with part of his crew to Microsoft.

.Net is the evolved VMS dynamic link libraries, using the old concept of a virtual machine to isolate functionality from differences in processor architecture. There is no way Microsoft will try to force enterprise companies to trust a ‘cloud’ service. Computer hardware is cheap. Most people not behind faraday cages and necessarily disconnected from the Internet are a big part of Microsoft's business, and will continue to be serviced.

Many at FR will remember that Microsoft Windows NT once supported MIPS, Alpha, Power PC, X86, and ARM, and would have supported any other vendor's architecture if the vendor paid for porting and support costs. Remember, DEC created the StrongARM, twenty years ago to address the low-power needs of several enormous customers. DEC’s semiconductor group applied their knowledge to the clean ARM architecture, something they had lots of experience doing, tripling the base clock speed on ARM-conformant processors.

While it was handy, as a Unix bastard (mix of System V and Berkeley) developer, to bring up the source when writing, or to fix something, Cutler and his crew, now at Microsoft did the right thing and decoupled everything they could. Letting VARs and OEMs make changes to privileged code in the kernel puts the reliability of the system at risk, and has been used by some software vendors to hog resources to make their application appear to be a superior performer. “Wizards” love the job stability created by Unix and its hundreds of variants, and appreciated the minimal start-up cost. Maintaining a proprietary OS is a nightmare, only justifiable for executing a proprietary application. An employer of mine was the world leader in their technology, but had twice as many engineers supporting the Unix variant than working on enhancing their unique market advantage.

The current Windows RT model is not unlike Cutler's ELN from twenty five years ago. But at the time, there wasn't enough profit from the real time sector to justify the project. It was the antithesis of the spaghetti coded real time kernels still causing many companies headaches. Real time Linux was always a joke (except to marketing), because Linux, based upon Unix and its predecessors, was created for text processing and was not “event driven” like VMS' predecessor RSX-11, also by Dave Cutler and his associates. Time will tell if the clever architecture under Windows RT will gain market share. Technically (and the architecture is well-described on the Microsoft site), it is full of good ideas and with a rich development environment, but the markets will tell.

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