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.
I believe you got me there, I picked the wong iteration. Should have updated that somewhat...
No such thing as root on a Windows machine.
You also have to realize that the operating system is made for the Home User, a person that isn’t going to utilize permissions and more than likely wouldn’t know how to.
Microsoft really doesn’t have a choice, could you imagine a person who really hasn’t used a computer trying to open a terminal window and using sudo or su to run an install as root?
They have to make the machine easy to use, they have to make it so people can install software easily.
Linux doesn’t have that burden, then again, that’s one of the reasons that Linux hasn’t taken off as a real competitor to MS in the home user market.
So no matter what, it’s always going to be the user that is the biggest security risk in Windows and any other computer operating system.
Looks like this might be a good time to repost an oldie, but a goodie...
To: COEXERJ145
What most Microsoft defenders don't realize is that the above is complete and total hogwash.
Firefox now has 10% of browser market share. While 10% may not sound like much it represents a huge number of users when you consider the total number of folks on the net. That also doesn't take into consideration that many people fake their browser responses to make it seem as though they are using IE so stupid websites that require IE for no legitimate reason will work.
Let's take one case in point to show how bogus the concept of "too few users to matter" really is. There are people out there who will write viruses to muck things up just because they can.
From the friendly article:
On Friday March 19, 2004 at approximately 8:45pm PST, an Internet worm began to spread, targeting a buffer overflow vulnerability in several Internet Security Systems (ISS) products, including ISS RealSecure Network, RealSecure Server Sensor, RealSecure Desktop, and BlackICE. The worm takes advantage of a security flaw in these firewall applications that was discovered earlier this month by eEye Digital Security. Once the Witty worm infects a computer, it deletes a randomly chosen section of the hard drive, over time rendering the machine unusable. The worm's payload contained the phrase "(^.^) insert witty message here (^.^)" so it came to be known as the Witty worm.
...
Witty infected only about a tenth as many hosts than the next smallest widespread Internet worm. Where SQL Slammer infected between 75,000 and 100,000 computers, the vulnerable population of the Witty worm was only about 12,000 computers.
Note in the above that the entire population of vulnerable computers was just 12,000, an insignificant number of hosts when you consider how many devices are on the internet.
The Victims:
The vulnerable host population pool for the Witty worm was quite different from that of previous virulent worms. Previous worms have lagged several weeks behind publication of details about the remote-exploit bug, and large portions of the victim populations appeared to not know what software was running on their machines, let alone take steps to make sure that software was up to date with security patches. In contrast, the Witty worm infected a population of hosts that were proactive about security -- they were running firewall software. The Witty worm also started to spread the day after information about the exploit and the software upgrades to fix the bug were available.
O.k., so you have a small pool of vulnerable hosts, and the users at least have the presense of mind to be running a firewall, yet someone took the time to craft and deploy this worm.
Are you sure you still want to claim that there just aren't enough Linux or OSX users out there to make it a tempting target?
That's not even taking psychology into account. There are groups out there who do this kind of thing for fun (and sometimes profit). The bragging rights to having created the first successful OSX worm should be tempting enough if it were as easy a target as MS-Windows apparently is.
How much RAM does it have?
The interface and layout of the OS is inefficient. Doing even the simplest administrative tasks require too many clicks and navigation steps.
I can't agree with you more here. Setting up Windows Vista for a friend was a nightmare of never-ending friendly-looking dialog after dialog. Microsoft decided that they needed to better "protect" the users by changing around the UI instead of the underlying architecture. They should give up on backward compatibility and force apps to either move to a sane API, or run sandboxed in a compatibility layer.
Yes, there is. It's called "Administrator"
They have to make the machine easy to use, they have to make it so people can install software easily.
No, they don't. If a person can't handle a tool, they shouldn't be operating that tool. That applies to arc welders and OSes. The biggest problem we have today is the fact that people who don't know how or are incapable of running the tool are actually running it--and affecting everyone around them.
4GB of DDR2. The computer came with 2gigs and I put 2 more in it when I found out he was going to be running Vista.
I just did a test. If I click on a picture in iPhoto and select ‘email’ it creates a standard jpeg in one of three sizes of my choice.
This is the usual and easy way to email photos. If she is attaching a picture from another source or another format that could be it.
In general, Macs read almost all formats, including Window specific ones like bmp. And they can write and save pretty much every format. I’d check to make sure she’s sending jpgs to you, and again the easiest way is to select them in iPhoto and click Email. It will create the jpgs and attach them to an email.
Ah, it’s already been posted that a Dell part for part is cheaper than a Mac.
Here’s the other thing, how about we price out the components on Newegg.com and see who can build one cheaper.
Oh yeah, I forgot, you can’t build a Mac...
You lose.
By the way, here’s a run down using Dell and Apple
Dell Inspiron:
Intel® Core™2 Duo 2MB L2 Cache,2.20GHz,800 FSB
20 inch E207WFP Widescreen Digital Flat Panel
2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz- 2DIMMs
500GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™
16X DVD+/-RW Drive
ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO 128MB
Total Cost: $958
iMac 20in screen:
2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
1GB memory
250GB hard drive1
8x double-layer SuperDrive
ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT with 128MB memory
Total Cost: $1199
Twice the ram twice the hard drive and it’s still $242 less than the Mac.
Gee, I guess the elite technocracy should be the only ones using computers.
Lord forbid we let the peasants handle them...
That's the truth! I wonder how much businesses spend every year because their users are dumb on computers. I'd be willing to bet that half of all help desk calls are because of user ignorance, and I'm talking about basic stuff here and not things that advanced users take for granted. Businesses often ask for "computer skills" as a job requirement, but almost always neglect follow through on it when they decide to hire someone. How often have you seen someone in the workplace and said to yourself, "they have no business using a computer"? I couldn't even begin to count the times I've said that. lol
Why dual boot? Run it on a virtual machine.
And if you’re working in IT it’s your job to help them learn.
I swear, you wonder why people have this stereotype of a IT person, so many of you follow it to a T.
I was talking about forwarded pictures in emails. She can see them when she gets them, but when she forwards them, I can’t see them.... I can’t tell what type they are.....only see the message ‘Type is not available’. This happens 8 out 10 emails she forwards to me.
But Microsoft gave the liquor and the car keys to the teenage driver.
Keep in mind, if it wasn’t for the users and Microsoft you wouldn’t have a job...
They are what helped to grow the IT market.
If you don’t like helping people and teaching them how not to break the machine then find another job.
I’ve worked in IT and that was one reason why users liked me, I knew how to fix things and then I’d teach them how not to break it.
Her email program must obviously change the format to something she can see when they come in....but doesn’t change them BACK when she forwards them. That’s pretty d@mn inconsiderate ;)
Because my kids are computer illiterates. It’s the curse of the programmer. We all have whiny idiot users at home.
Funny you should mention running off a CD — I am currently doing that on my PC using Kubuntu Live CD. I have a PC with WinME that I was going to try this on; then a f’d up update to ZoneAlarm took my WinXP out to lunch — no start of WinXP. Waiting for a replacement HD to arrive (so I can load that with my backup and later access the other drive as a slave to grab my data) I stuck the CD in and it comes up great. Has lots of bells and whistles that I’ll never need, but the base system puts Winders to shame.
Give it a try — go to http://www.kubuntu.org/download.php and burn one then boot from it.
CAUTION: Do not hit the Install Icon on the desktop unless you really want to rewrite your drive.
That is *way* too broad a brush to be painting with. I work in IT, and it hasn't been my job to help anyone in several years. It's like telling a neurologist to fix your foot because he's a doctor. Different areas.
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