Posted on 09/22/2005 11:44:57 AM PDT by Incorrigible
Introduction
Los Angeles (CA) - The way we build and use personal computers will change dramatically over the next 24 months, and if Microsoft has anything to do it, they will be a principal catalyst for these changes. Linux developers will regret admitting this, but the changes being made to Windows, announced at last week's Professional Developers' Conference, will dramatically impact the architecture and feature set of all personal computers, handhelds, and to some degree, even other consumer appliances.
This change at the software level is important, because it impacts not only how we work, but what we work with. No software producer in the world has the degree of influence over computer architecture as Microsoft. We benchmark systems today using performance tests that are at least ten years old, and are based on the way some people have always known Microsoft Office to work. These benchmarks help companies decide how much processor power, memory, and storage to deploy when purchasing or building systems in bulk. Now, the fundamentals of the applications we've tested are about to change. No longer will Office documents be locked into a proprietary format; in fact, the contents of those documents can be unlocked, queried, compared with and against one another, and shared using open formats. And not just the version of "open" formats that Microsoft has been pushing, but really Open in the traditional, Internet way.
The irony for Linux is huge.
Intel (and AMD by extension) and Microsoft have completely rewritten the rules by which computing performance is perceived and the role for Linux as well. These new protocols and standards that comprise Vista's landscape were largely developed under Linux environments, and many by Linux supporters. Nonetheless, Microsoft is doing what no single Linux vendor, or association of such vendors, have accomplished so far: It's putting these new standards together and making a working information sharing system out of them. And it is putting their own products, servers, and services squarely in the middle.
The Top Developments Of PDC 2005
Two of the three most significant developments to emerge from last week's PDC, came unexpectedly, which either says something about Microsoft's marketing ability of late, or our own ability to keep our eyes on the ball:
Office 12 will change how users work with computers. Whether this is necessarily for the better is yet to be determined; for some companies, at least at first, it won't be. Changing Office is a significant development, merely for the costs that businesses will incur in retraining their workforce: When Office 97 was replaced with Office 2000, and when Office 2000 was replaced with Office XP, the differences between the older and newer versions were so insignificant and cosmetic as to be relatively inexpensive. At least it seems that way from today's perspective. But merely the new appearance of Office 12 (whose final name has not been determined) is enough to strike fear in the hearts and minds of both general computer users and the educators and support personnel who keep them informed. We knew going into PDC that Office 12 would adopt a new, XML-based file format. Sure the removal of menu bars - a feature common to every graphical application since MacPaint - is a big deal. This and other similarly sweeping changes will lead to educators, publishers, and consultants having to retool, to address the needs of just those customers who will be bold enough to make the change. As reluctant as some customers have been to abandon Windows 2000 even at this late date, and as capable as computers will have to be to even run Office 12, it's a safe bet that early adoption will be slow and cautious.
Restructuring the operating system around XML will change how users work with files and data. Here's an idea of the nature of this change, put in practical terms: If you remember the 1980s, one of the best selling utility software packages of that decade was called Norton Commander. One of its most heralded features was the ability to peer into any document file, produced by most of the major applications of the day, and display their contents in a legible format. In a sense, it was hacking. Now, fast-forward a quarter century: You know how CSS stylesheets already give graphical styles to HTML and XHTML content. Now, imagine a kind of stylesheet that can give a graphical console to any XML document, including one produced with Office 12. This console is independent of the program that produced it. What's more, it's independent of the Web browser that's rendering it, so the stylesheet can make the document appear sensibly, and appear anywhere. You don't need a Norton Commander for an Office 12 document; its contents can show themselves off. We did see this one coming, but it's still important because it shows a new commitment from Microsoft not only to liberate data from the application that produces it, but to connect that data to new applications that can make better use of it down the road.
Microsoft intends to support the creation of a premium performance class of computer, separately from a standard performance class. We don't know yet what the performance specifications will be for brand-name computers and graphics cards to qualify for the DirectX 10 logo (which is itself yet to be unveiled). But last week, we learned that DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 will be supported simultaneously. And if what Microsoft engineer Pablo Fernicola tells us is accurate and heartfelt, DirectX 10 support - which will only be realized in Vista - will provide elevated performance features distinguishing a "full-scale" Vista machine from merely a DirectX 9 machine upgraded to run Vista. Microsoft group product manager Greg Sullivan shared with us a set of tentative minimum hardware requirements, including 64 Mb of graphics memory as a minimum, 128 Mb recommended. Those specifications are likely to apply to DirectX 9 machines. Since memory specifications generally ascend in powers of two, then the 256 Mb of GDDR that an Australian Microsoft engineer reported might be necessary for users to realize the full Vista experience, is looking more and more like the likely figure.
Microsoft Banks On Its Inherent Advantages
As Greg Sullivan, the company's group product manager for Windows, told Tom's Hardware Guide last Thursday, Microsoft is sharpening, and to some degree, even trimming its focus to become a "platform company." That's far from a new term; what's new is the way Microsoft is implementing its platform strategy for Vista: Rather than develop a single, convoluted semi-standard (such as ActiveX) and ramming it through the default pipeline of the Web browser, Microsoft is embracing many of the alternative standards that have emerged in the development communities outside of its Redmond campus. But unlike those communities, Microsoft is stitching all these standards together - XML, XSLT, XAML, RSS, SOAP, LINQ, AJAX, and the list continues. By making all these standards come to life on the Microsoft platform in a way that no single vendor can make happen on the Linux platform, Microsoft is not only generating new and practical value that consumers can perceive - not just programmers - but also spotlighting the Linux communities' key weakness: their lack of cohesion among one another.
By reorienting its applications around XML - a much lighter-weight construct than COM for inter-application communication - Microsoft is making Windows and its applications more efficient (theoretically). Technically, greater efficiency should yield higher performance, especially with reduced overhead. But up to now, the key market driver for consumers and businesses upgrading systems has not been so much increasing perceived performance, as it has been keeping up with the performance levels with which users were already familiar. One check of the \SYSTEM32 folder will tell you, Windows is long overdue for a diet. As Windows' bloat has grown, Office and other Windows apps have gotten slower; faster processors through the years have merely masked the problem.
But if Windows' bloat can no longer be relied upon to drive adoption of higher performance systems, we wondered, what will take its place? Last week, we found out: With the new Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) integrating 3D rendering into every graphical operation, and replacing the old two-dimensional GDI, the same factors that drive gamers to upgrade and modify their systems - oftentimes competing with one another - will be relied upon to compel businesses and home applications users to do the same. Clear and well-distinguished performance tiers are generally much appreciated by retailers, as well as some OEMs. So here again, Microsoft is leveraging against its advantages as a complete platform company, not only by giving retailers a good/better/best differentiator to create a reliable economy of scale, but also by defining the PC in ways Linux cannot.
If the open source community has any chance against Vista in the next five years, it will need to do more than just be "open" to new ideas. It will need to fuse them into a single competitive platform that consumers, retailers, developers, and manufacturers alike will accept as an alternative platform. Then, and only then, will Microsoft have a real challenger on its hands. Microsoft has a history of using its prominence to its advantage. But this time, its tactics are different. It's making a shrewd play inside the new sandbox that compliance with the DOJ and the EU have created for it. If you thought the Microsoft that wasn't afraid to bend or break the rules was a threat to the market, wait until you see the Microsoft that isn't afraid to write some new rules. The new Microsoft -- this time around -- is using tactics that are legal, clever, and perhaps -- dare we even say -- even admirable. Of course, only time will tell.
Not for commercial use. For educational and discussion purposes only.
I've had a chance to preview MS WORD 12.
I wish I could realistically promise domination of the world. Just think, men's only roads and atm machines. Plus, all women would get their schedules in synch and have to go off on a retreat with the kids for 5 days at the bad time of the month. That is, except for the large number of women who work in the genetlemen's clubs while the rest of the women are off on the retreat.
Sign. Micro$oft is always creating 'new' standards and then either does not allow people to peek at the 'gears' underneath or changes the 'cogs' to lock out those who were able to figure out what was going on behind the scenes. Their new XML idea supposidly comes with an EULA that says you do not own the content of your own files.
Micro$oft is like the IRS -- you have to deal with them, you do have to pay thme money, and your they do not understand why they are not universally loved.
Im really thrilled about this and I hope it works out well for MS. I am rather amused that while in the process of pissing and moaning about the state of MA wanting an open doc format that has been documented and supported for years the rank and file astroturfers here pretend MS invented open formats.
These new protocols and standards that comprise Vista's landscape were largely developed under Linux environments, and many by Linux supporters.
I must have missed it in the article what new protocols? it looks to me like MS is just using other open mature protocols (good for them). It is like how they hype they were hyping 'dns technology' for active directory even though they were more than a decade late to the party..
Their new XML idea supposidly comes with an EULA that says you do not own the content of your own files.
If you find a link to that, please ping me!
New for Microsoft!
I'm having a hard time understanding.
How is moving to open file formats not a boon to open source?
What's the big deal? So they changed the GUI and the file formats. Hasn't that been SOP since day one?
What replaces the menu bar? Context sensitive right click, anticipation by the application (please say no), or something else?
Seems like a lot of hype.
Context sensitive toolbars!
Thanks for the ping!!
I'd forgotten about BOB!! Actually, I probably blocked it out of my memory.
You will be assimilated!!!
Wasn't this what Office '95 was going to do? And Office '98 and Office XP and Office 2000 and Office Suite 2003.
AND????????????????????????????????
Microsoft BOB. Woof!
And they did! In retrospect it's easy to overlook how Windows and Office has changed our experience with our computers (for the better wiseguys!) since we've become so adept at using them.
Office 12 is a significant improvement however.
>...but also spotlighting the Linux communities' key weakness:
>their lack of cohesion among one another.
I really wish the KDE and Gnome folk would team up
Maybe Microsoft *is* betting that the Open Source community will never gel to generate as integrated a product. After all OpenOffice and Firefox are enough for 90% of the world ...
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