“Microsoft said last week it plans to hire 4,000 to 5,000 new workers and to increase research spending by about 8 percent, to $6.9bn per year. The company also said it has $49bn lying around collecting interest. So what should Bill and Steve do with these wondrous resources? My suggestion: Start over,” writes ZDNet’s David Coursey.
Coursey continues, “Yes, I think they should build a new operating system, as much from scratch as necessary, to solve Windows’s most intractable problem: it’s not all that easy to use and really isn’t getting any easier. It’s also bloated with features and controls that most people never need, further weakening its ease of use. In short, we need a new Microsoft OS that’s actually easy to use, runs easy-to-use applications, and adapts itself to each user’s specific digital environment — the other computers, phones, music devices, video gear, still cameras, etc., with which most of us surround our PCs.”
“This new MS OS should be designed to easily share information, especially media content, with other computers as well as other storage devices (TiVo DVRs, for example) and presentation devices like video monitors and speaker systems,” Coursey writes. “Whoops, this is beginning to sound like Mac OS X again. The goal for this operating system would be as much perceptual as technical. The OS should be as well loved by its core users as Mac OS is loved by that community.”
Full article here.
its true i love mac os x
Simple solution… Why not just switch to Mac OS X????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Come on now – Haven’t MS grabbed enough from our platform for their own use in the past! Even to suggest copying OS X will make someone at MS think maybe they should do just that.
yah right, like M$ is going to do that. They did the big re-write with NT and they probably won’t plan on doing another one really soon.
I’d just hope they spend some time working on an existing product insted of always trying to upgrade.
I think hell would freeze over first.
Don’t be so sure they won’t. They’ll need to get out a fully 64 bit OS over the next 5 years or so (as will Apple, but with rather less complications), which would provide them with the perfect opportunity for the kind of mass migration needed.
We shall see, I guess.
Brother Mugga
Never happen. One strong point with Microsoft is their backwards compatibility, well mostly
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />. If they rewrite the major flaws in their OS, say the registry, a lot – if not all – programs will break. They have dug their own pit of despair. Also, Microsoft couldn’t write an easy to use program/OS if their money depended on it. They write programs with lots of options and features. Simple is not in their vocabulary. Easy to use application restricts options to show the one, well thought out, obvious method to get the job done. If MS wrote a program like that they would panic at the last minute and add heaps of features. The whole shebang becomes complex and weird. Then they are back to an operating system like, well, Windows…
Something tells me we’ll be waiting a VERY long time for M$ to get off its duff and do something [gasp] ORIGINAL.
Why is Longhorn so far off? With that much cash, and that much spent on R&D ($6.9Billion is more than Apple Computer, Inc’s entire yearly revenue), then why can’t they push something newer to market faster? Heck with the rewrite, just fix what they’ve got and get new features out. I’d hate to be a Wintel user stuck with Windows XP for another 2 years.
-Zack
Just when Longhorn almost finish, Panther is coming out. “Damn!” they said, “copying OSX takes years already! Copying Panther will take much longer time than that. This Apple people really force us to hire more people!”
A great opportunity for Apple to approach MS to licence Marklar (OSX for Intel), I think.
there are many problems: bill’s schizophrenia to rule the world ( ihatesteve complex, and heembossesme complex) cause that (schizophrenia) the next windows target users will be…the whole world! and all the mac users (musicians, artists, think different people) yes he have to mix XPloit and OS X and Linux and Solaris and BSD and IRIX…etc. Under the new STOP Menu (number one requested feature) will be Apple Menu, the taskbar will now be multidesktop, you will have all the control panels inside one window and will be named Preferences panel, the new system will have applications dedicated to digital gears as like $ surprisingly recognize as the new revolution on the computer era, like windows 2000 revolutionize the desktop publishing 2 years ago, longhorn will revolutionize the audio and video bringing to you things like mp3 and dvd…DVD! man! and things not imaginated years ago connect your digital camera and boom!you’re done! it’s new AMAZING system will catch all the entire world…and what about the sex?
I don’t think licensing anything to M$ is a good idea. They never license (unless to pump money into another companies legal fees), they just steal and tie companies in endless litigation until they go bankrupt.
Yeah Right! They aren’t going to do a damn rewrite. They acknowledged that the best computer hardware/software combination is one where they are tightly integrated, and therefore controlled. I.E. Apple. Apple puts together the hardware and the corresponding software OS to accompany it.
M$ has too many things going on, too much functionality, too many variables to control.
The worst thing I’ve seen implemented in their OS is right clicking the scroll bar and choosing SCROLL RIGHT. Why not drag the whole thing stupid?!? Dumb and not needed functionality equates to a dumb and not needed OS.
And they will do a lot of copying of OS X anyways.
At this rate, Longhorn will be MS’ copland. So, few years from now, MS will announce they bought brand X OS company, CEO of X will agree to become advisor to CEO of MS, and the technology officer of X will be in charge of developing new OS.
Multiple choice
X =
1) PalmOS (BeOS)
2) MacOSX
3) RedHat (Linux)
4) QNX (Wind River)
5) Other
I can just hear billy boy screaming in terror…
“…’Open Source’??? ahhhhhhh oh my goooooood! noooooooooooooooooo!”
Poor bill. See bill shrink away from the sugguestion of open source like it was covered with ebola.