Posted on 04/11/2008 6:50:11 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
The researchers damn Windows in current form, urge radical changes
Calling the situation "untenable" and describing Windows as "collapsing," a pair of Gartner analysts yesterday said Microsoft Corp. must make radical changes to its operating system or risk becoming a has-been.
In a presentation at a Gartner-sponsored conference in Las Vegas, analysts Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald said Microsoft has not responded to the market, is overburdened by nearly two decades of legacy code and decisions, and faces serious competition on a whole host of fronts that will make Windows moot unless the software developer acts.
"For Microsoft, its ecosystem and its customers, the situation is untenable," said Silver and MacDonald in their prepared presentation, titled "Windows Is Collapsing: How What Comes Next Will Improve."
Among Microsoft's problems, the pair said, is Windows' rapidly-expanding code base, which makes it virtually impossible to quickly craft a new version with meaningful changes. That was proved by Vista, they said, when Microsoft -- frustrated by lack of progress during the five-year development effort on the new operating -- hit the "reset" button and dropped back to the more stable code of Windows Server 2003 as the foundation of Vista.
"This is a large part of the reason [why] Windows Vista delivered primarily incremental improvements," they said. In turn, that became one of the reasons why businesses pushed back Vista deployment plans. "Most users do not understand the benefits of Windows Vista or do not see Vista as being better enough than Windows XP to make incurring the cost and pain of migration worthwhile."
Other analysts, including those at Gartner rival Forrester Research Inc., have highlighted the slow move toward Vista. Last month, Forrester said that by the end of 2007 only 6.3% of 50,000 enterprise computer users it surveyed were working with Vista. What gains Vista made during its first year, added Forrester, appeared to be at the expense of Windows 2000; Windows XP's share hardly budged.
The monolithic nature of Windows -- although Microsoft talks about Vista's modularity, Silver and MacDonald said it doesn't go nearly far enough -- not only makes it tough to deliver a worthwhile upgrade, but threatens Microsoft in the mid- and long-term.
Users want a smaller Windows that can run on low-priced -- and low-powered -- hardware. And increasingly, users work with "OS-agnostic applications," the two analysts said in their presentation. It takes too long for Microsoft to build the next version, the company is being beaten by others in the innovation arena, and in the future -- perhaps as soon as the next three years -- it's going to have trouble competing with Web applications and small, specialized devices.
"Apple introduced its iPhone running OS X, but Microsoft requires a different product on handhelds because Windows Vista is too large, which makes application development, support and the user experience all more difficult," according to Silver and MacDonald.
"Windows as we know it must be replaced," they said in their presentation.
Their advice to Microsoft took several forms, but one road they urged the software giant to take was virtualization. "We envision a very modular and virtualized world," said the researchers, who spelled out a future where virtualization -- specifically a hypervisor -- is standard on client as well as server versions of Windows.
"An OS, in this case Windows, will ride atop the hypervisor, but it will be much thinner, smaller and modular than it is today. Even the Win32 API set should be a module that can be deployed to maintain support for traditional Windows applications on some devices, but other[s] may not have that module installed."
Backward compatibility with older applications should also be supported via virtualization. "Backward compatibility is a losing proposition for Microsoft; while it keeps people locked into Windows, it also often keeps them from upgrading," said the analysts. "[But] using built-in virtualization, compatibility modules could be layered atop Win32, or not, as needed."
Silver and MacDonald also called on Microsoft to make it easier to move to newer versions of Windows, re-think how it licenses Windows and come up with a truly modular operating system that can grow or shrink as needed.
Microsoft has taken some new steps with Windows, although they don't necessarily match what the Gartner analysts recommended. For instance, the company recently granted Windows XP Home a reprieve from its June 30 OEM cut-off, saying it would let computer makers install the older, smaller operating system on ultra-cheap laptops through the middle of 2010.
It will also add a hypervisor to Windows -- albeit the server version -- in August, and there are signs that it will launch Windows 7, the follow-on to Vista, late next year rather than early 2010.
Uh oh, you're trying to get me started! We have entered the "Pet Peeve Department" together.
I have found that if you double the recommended RAM to run Vista most of the problems go away.
Since I applied the “rule-of-thumb” I have had no problems with Vista. I have even found some work around for the some of the application incompatibility issues. It seems the key is do all your installations as “System Administrator”. Other colleagues who have done this have gotten some very old applications to run on Vista. (Applications that wouldn't run in XP!) I am not claiming these “findings” are definitive in an engineering sense. It was some “discoveries” that myself and some friends made by just fooling around with Vista. However let me say that RAM is the key ! Pay not attention to what the recommended RAM level is ! Double it, if you order a laptop don't accept the amount of RAM as loaded, add more !
Note this does not make me a Vista fan, its just makes it more tolerable if I have to use it.
Silver and MacDonald also called on Microsoft to make it easier to move to newer versions of Windows, re-think how it licenses Windows and come up with a truly modular operating system that can grow or shrink as needed.
The two statements above are contradictory, in addition, if they think making peoples present applications useless will sell more OS they are just plain stupid. The reason people are not moving to Vista in large numbers is because on older systems you can't run older apps with Vista, you can't even upgrade to Vista without upgrading your equipment in many cases. So their idea is to take what is making Vista bomb out and to increase the problems. Smart thinking.
The problem with any OS is that once people all have it and once it is stable(such as XP with SP2)then sales drop off and are limited to people who don't already have the system. However, as has been proven, people get tired of spending money upgrading every few years and resist changing to a system that really doesn't improve their operations and, in addition, requires them to buy new hardware and new apps. Common sense dictates that companies are going to go the way that gives them more profit, buying new equipment and new apps every few years doesn't do that.
VISTA IS HELL ON EARTH.
And to everyone griping about Vista, I’ve been running it since it came out, and I haven’t had a single issue.
Then again, I don’t screw around with installing things that won’t work on it.
When you’re trying to install XP drivers on Vista it’s going to crash most of the time, but that’s not MS’s fault, that’s yours for trying.
Yes Vista requires more memory, but the cost is so low now that you really don’t have an excuse.
None the less, no one is holding a gun to your head to use Vista or Windows in general, buy a Mac or install Linux.
Welcome to the free market, Microsoft isn’t a monopoly no matter what congress says, they make the most widely used product, but they’re not a monopoly, you have options.
Besides, you can get 8GB of ram now for around $130. And still people bitch.
Yes, that’s why I sitting at my PC typing this instead of using my brand new (3 days old)laptop!
Microsoft sucks.........:0)
I’ve seen that, too. We have a company laptop that came with Vista, and it would take 5-10 minutes to wake up, even after a reinstall.
It also would blue screen when running VMware.
The same Latitude D630 was very responsive, usable and stable with Debian Linux installed.
Windows98 worked great. The only reason I ever end up with a newer version of windows is because my old computer broke so I threw it away and got a new one.
Thanks for the heads up!
I have another question: See my post #60.
It’s so darn slow.................
Do you know if I can save the outlook emails to a file? I need to do that with Hotmail too...
“Since we have three XP laptops & one PC, could I use one of those OS disks?”
If the copy of XP has been registered already, you might run into a problem. I’m not exactly sure how to get around that...maybe someone else on here has an idea.
Speaking as a software programmer, I can tell you that it's REALLY important to take care of the needs of the ONE user in Uzbekistan - who just happens to be a corporate VP - who needs that 1% tweak to write the latest company grant.
Of course, he or she'll be down the road in 6 months, but who cares?
Your software is more bloated, and you have a great new subroutine that no one will ever use again, but must be maintained and tripped over for the next 5 years.
This is where bloatware comes from...
I like Outlook because of its integration with other Office applications. I like the integration for moving contact information over to labels, letters and such. Beyond being able to keep my schedule and tasks organized, this is a big thing for me. How well does Thunderbird integrate with Office?
Ver. 3 or Merlin?
That’s true, but then you have to look at the processor in a budget laptop. Vista may be too much for it.
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