“Microsoft’s Windows juggernaut is collapsing as it tries to support 20 years of applications and becomes more complicated by the minute. Meanwhile, Windows has outgrown hardware and customers are pondering skipping Vista to wait for Windows 7. If Windows is going to remain relevant it will need radical changes,” Larry Dignan blogs for ZDNet.
“That sobering outlook comes courtesy of Gartner analysts Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald. Half of a full room of IT managers and executives raised their hands when asked whether Microsoft needed to radically change its approach to Windows,” Dignan reports.
“So what does Microsoft need to do? For starters, Windows should create versions for specific uses. These modules would be able to swapped out depending on the customer,” Dignan reports.
A few key redesign ideas from Silver and MacDonald:
• Windows should be able to be tailored to specific applications
• Better security
• Make migration to new versions easier
• Simplify licensing to focus on specific devices
Dignan reports, “The bottom line for Gartner is that Windows needs to be replaced, lock-in needs to end and product schedules need to be more predictable. Windows should also be more manageable.”
“Will Windows 7 become this adaptive thing that Gartner describes? Probably not. Gartner argues that Microsoft should use virtualization to solve the backward compatibility issue plaguing Windows,” Dignan writes. “Will Windows 7 jettison its current kernel for multiple versions? Not likely.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Brawndo Drinker” for the heads up.]
@Another IT Guy
If Vista is so great, how do you log in as Administrator? Even MS won’t answer that at ANY IT mega-gathering.
I’ve often wondered how many people purchased a Windows based PC, became frustrated with it, and decided that computers were ” not for them “. Imagine how many PCs sit in attics and garages unused or used as heavy paperweights. Can you also imagine how much worse Windows would be if they didn’t have some competition from Apple ?
DH:
If it weren’t for Apple I do believe we would be running DOS Version 12 now on our IBM workstations with our dummy terminals.
@ Bluestreak
Not that you’ll ever need or use it, but this is how you log in as Admin under Vista:
My Computer (right click) –> Manage –> Users and Groups –> Users –> Administrator –> Properties.
Enable the account.
You’re done.
This is hardly a secret amongst IT people…unless, of course they’re trying to use it like XP (and most are, foolishly).
Ampar. Fox news also has Black Mac pros on the show at 4pm Pac time. Of course most of the libs on this site will never see them.
To ron:
And yet this “lib” actually likes the Fox News mobile version on my iPhone. Go figure. (The video feature is pretty cool.)
P.S. Courtney Friel is hot.
All it will take is a clean sheet of paper.
But they don’t have any…
@ Ampar
Ah yes. Fox News – Soft porn in the guise of news for uptight do-gooders. The Moral Majority always has the *BEST* whores.
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Doomed from scratch!
Microsoft has always been a malware of it’s own and developpers coudn’t do else then programming the best they could for a peace of sh.t…
re: If history is any judge, Microsoft will do exactly what these guys want. Microsoft’s history is to copy whatever Apple did last, so …
Windows 7 will be a whole new modular OS built on top of an open source BSD kernel. This will help them to work better with all the Open Source guys they have to cosy up to in the near future, and (finally) give them cred in the security arena.
Then they only have to scrap DirectX and replace it with OpenGL and you have something that might actually work.
—
This will never happen.
Why?
Because Microsoft HAS to support every piece of hardware ever created within the last 15 years.
And yes, there are drivers in Vista for FLOPPY DISK DRIVES!
@passerby
… and TV’s OS X
@DogGone
Apple didn’t start from scratch, Apple aquired NeXT which had started from scratch almost 10 years earlier. And it still took Apple half a decade to make Mac OS X really stable.
Microsoft has bumpy road to drive. Currently the customers have that, but many of them don’t seem to care.
Proof positive that these idiots have no idea what they’re talking about:
“Silver’s recommendation: Go with Vista but on an attrition basis. As XP PCs die, replace them with Vista PCs.“
Do you know any enterprise that does this, support two versions of their mission-critical operating system at the same time? That would be a retarded decision.
——RM
I saw a movie once titled “Seven”; is that where M$ got the idea for the name?
@MadMacs
Mac OS 7
MS wants to buy Yahoo so Ballmer can get the focus off Windows’ problems and give himself 5-10 years for excuses for more Windows delays and problems.
As long as MS convinces us to delay and wait for the next version which will fix all the bugs they have a hope of retaining their existing business model.
If MS just add to existing Windows it will just creak and break more. If they rewrite Windows then enterprise will hate them. If they go virtualised then a move to the Mac makes more sense. If they split Windows per machine task then consumers will become more confused. If they Zune the PC, making it more proprietary then their partners will desert them and the DOJ will come knocking.
SJ had a similar issue with Apple II and later MacOS 9. He had 2-3 years of hatred while people could not run their old apps, had to buy new hardware and complained. But it was the right decision in the end.
MS needs to either:
• create a totally new and incompatible OS, with old Windows running virtually for 2-5 years (like PS2/PS3 chip emulation)
• create a totally new and incompatible OS lines, continuing to sell XP/Vista for old hardware (like GameBoy/Wii)
Apple had to buy in the technology to go this from NeXT. MS has the virtualisation smarts, but I doubt MS will have the foresight to be able to build a new OS from the ground up. MacOS X has now become too large to copy from scratch.
As far as I’m concerned, people who are forced to use Windows at their jobs have a good excuse.
Actually, they don’t!
The abdication of ICT strategy to a quasi-priesthood like most IT functions is a sign of a dysfunctional client/supplier relationship between the company generally and the IT service provider, whether that provider is internal, external or outsourced. IT should be answerable to the business, given that IT is a cost centre that simply sucks up money that is generated by the profit centres.
It is way too easy for people in small companies to sit back and let the VP of Finance/Financial Controller/whatever take control of IT and then complain that either a) progress on IT is too slow or b) IT doesn’t do what they want. And then you wake up ten years later and find that the guy who is now your CFO has laid down a blueprint that has led to comprehensive lock-in to the Microsoft monoculture.
In plain English, if you’re prepared to sit back and just let Information and Communications technology be provided to you without you questioning whether it is appropriate for your needs, you as culpable as a private consumer who doesn’t do any research because, in a successful set-up, the customer (i.e. the user community) asks questions and moulds the ICT to its needs.
I knew Microsoft was going to collapse under its own weight….they shoulda put Ballmer on a diet.
@Ron….can you stop with the lib crap…makes you look childish.
Just out of curiosity, do you think it’s possible to accomplish a brand new operating system by committee?
From here you can watch the destruction of your OS and the end of your insignificant monopoly.
@Zune Tang
You forgot to mention that when Windows 7 is released in a few years it will be WAY better than Leopard. Way better.
@IT Guy
And on the Mac all you have to do is go:
Apple Menu –> Log out
Then you log back in as Admin. That’s it! Pretty bloody simple. If you like things even easier, you can do it in one step with command + shift + Q. That may not be revelation to you, but this is a perfect example of how OS X is a bout a kajillion times simpler on every level than Windows, and yet at the same time fundamentally so much more solid, robust, and secure.
@C1: You preach it girl!
@LordRobin: Actually, what you say is exactly how enterprise eases into new versions of Windows OS, they wait for everybody else to “debug” it, and as they order new machines they begin to order them with the latest MS OS. I’ve heard more than several IT managers state up front that they will start incorporating all new versions of Windows about one year after initial release – and that’s just when they start. It can take another year or more before an entire organization has switched completely over.
Mr. Peabody…
Your comment about how new versions of Windows infect their way into corporates is relatively true, however – for some companies with obscure custom application portfolios – the testing and approval process can be a nightmare, especially when MSFT changes the driver model or the application developer changes how the registry works for a particular app.
For example, I know of one company that is so infested with oil/natural resource propellor-heads that many of them have written their own apps to make their lives easier (e.g. an app that predicts how waxy deposits build up on the inside of a pipe dependant on length, angle and the chemical composition of the crude oil).
DH-
“Can you also imagine how much worse Windows would be if they didn’t have some competition from Apple ?”
Uh DH,
Don’t you mean “inspiration” from Apple?