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Windows 7 Likely Going Modular, Subscription-based
Microsoft CRM writes "When Windows 7 launches sometime after the start of 2010, the desktop OS will be Microsoft's most 'modular' operating system to date. That's not necessarily a good thing, of course; Windows Vista is a sprawling, complex OS. From Microsoft's perspective, though, there are many possible benefits. The OS's developers can add/remove functionality module by module. New modules could be sold post-launch, keeping revenue streams strong. A modular approach could also allow the company to make functionality available on a time-limited basis, potentially allowing users to 'rent' a feature if it's needed on a one-off basis. Microsoft is already testing 'pay as you go' consumer subscriptions in developing countries."
Considering Microsoft has, in the past, been accused of artificially bundling components together (IE+Windows, DirectX10+Vista, etc), I'm going to remain skeptical on this plan. It seems like Microsoft can get much higher revenue from a several-hundred-dollars major upgrade than a pick-n-choose bundle of features. The only way I see them breaking it apart is if their monopoly really does begin to be challenged and they have to start selling in a truly competitive market.
E pluribus unum
...how that more & more Windows looks like *nix sometimes.
Since NT 3.5 we've had:
True multi-user (Terminal services, fast-user switching), sudo (UAC), headless servers (server core), decent scripting (PowerShell), and now more modularity?
Yeah I know, some of these aren't exactly the same, but you see my point.
throw new NoSignatureException();
So I wonder if this will be some high level granularity or some true kernel level modularity like Apples quasi-mach kernel. Or even go all the way to a Objective-C message passing interface at the code level.
It's interesting to note that Apple's OS is ultra-modular at the lowest levels but is sold monolithically. Apple has always done well by specing out it's hardware and software at a maximum consistent level for every machine. Thus developers could assume that firewire exists or this or that OS feature exists. etc...
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
How is this any different to what they have done all along, where custom installations allow you to pick and choose components? I remember doing that all the way back in the mid-90s.
I guess what I'm saying is: what separates a "module" from an application or a library? There appears to be no meaningful difference.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
The difference is Vista's poor sales and Microsoft's imploding cash reserves. No cash, no control, end of story.
No calls now, I'm
Another 'danger' (from Microsoft's perspective) would be "the WINE effect", a.k.a. reverse engineering. If they separate their OS into well-defined modules, then others can create replacements for those modules. Even if the interfaces are secret and there is no public documentation (which is likely to be the case), the partitioning into modules will mean that at some level there is a well-defined API (even if it isn't publicly disclosed). So people can reverse-engineer that API and write their own drop-in replacement modules.
This would be great for lots of people: other companies could write competing modules to replace Windows functionality (why pay for Microsoft's system-wide search module when Google's is so much better?). Also, free and open-source modules will probably be created for many of those features.
Of course, it may be that Microsoft intends to create a complicated system of internal certificates and code signing so that only MS-approved modules can use these hidden APIs. It seems like that would add a considerable performance penalty, but then again I guess that's not too different from the decisions they made in designing Vista.
Okay, there is no way in hell that I'm going to run any OS as my main OS that requires a fucking *subscription*.
What happens when you're late with a payment? You windows will refuse to let you log in?
I've been using Linux pretty exclusively at home for the past year (my wife does OSX on her new intel macbook). The more I use it, the more I can envision a completely MS free life. Now this news just gives me a date to go along with that vision
I'm going to say it: 2010 will be the year of the Linux desktop! Thanks to MS!
"It's a tarp!" -- Dyslexic Admiral Ackbar
Anybody remember Vista Ultimate edition? The one that promised Ultimate Extras - regular extras that you could download through Windows Update? They released 3 things through that: an small card game, DreamScene (sucks up CPU to animate your desktop background), and Bitlocker full drive encryption. That was all just a little after RTM - nothing since then.
When they came up with the idea I thought it might be interesting, but they've shown they can't follow through. If this is at all similar I'm sure it will fail. Microsoft won't be overthrown just from this, certainly not by 2010, but I'm sure it will pave more of the Disappointment Road that Vista started.
When they say "subscription" I get kind of worried. Valve carefully calls their Steam games "subscriptions" to remove your right of resale.
What they REALLY mean is that they are going to be taking out huge chunks of functionality, and then charging you separately for each of those chunks.
I *fully* expect that the first version of Office that runs on "Windows 7" will have formerly free features that no require you to pay for add-ons to Windows before they will work.
I actually like Microsoft for the most part, but their push towards software-as-a-service is really turning me off. If anything is going to bring them down, it will be this. I don't think they understand just how much of a backlash their is going to be. No one wants to be nickeled-and-dimed to death. Business won't do it, and consumers won't care.
It was a bit before my time, but the story goes that IBM used to operate in pretty much exactly this way back in the mainframe days. They would sell the customer a mainframe at a certain performance level, but actually ship them a much more powerful machine with some of its resources disabled/limited/throttled via software, so that it performed at the (lower) level the customer had been sold. Then when the customer needed an upgrade, they would bill them a ginormous amount, then send out a service tech to "install the upgrade" -- but all he really did was remove the limiters. This was called a "golden screwdriver" upgrade because the tech could earn IBM hundreds of thousands of dollars just with the proverbial turn of a screw.
Read my blog.
I don't think it is a slippery slope at all. It actually sound disturbingly realistic. I mean, a lot of software already is limited to the number of CPU's it will use. And there's versions of MSSQL that only support databases of certain size. It really isn't too much of a stretch to have to pay for these things in Windows 7.
Though I don't think it will go over well with customers. As if running a Windows computer wasn't already a hassle with having to think about virus protection, malware protection, now you'll have to constantly be bumping up against limitations of the OS and offered "upgrades."
It just seems like MS is going the wrong way with OSes. Instead of making them more transparent and simple, they just keep piling on complexity. I mean, complexity for the user. Obviously the complexity of the code is going to go up. That much is a given. But the way the user interacts with it doesn't have to be complex.
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
So if they are going to be charging me for using Windows 7, can I expect to get refunds when it doesn't work ?
What was the article about again? Oh, right. Boo hiss MSFT. Or something.
There's a perfect xkcd for my sig but I'm too lazy to look it up. sudo someone go find it.
Japanese grammar is actually very uniform. There are only 1 or 2 verb conjugation exceptions or something like that. The hard part is reading/writing the Chinese characters, which does include knowing which pronunciation to use (Japanese or "Chinese"). And actually I've spoken with Japanese people that felt Romance languages weren't too bad, particularly Spanish, especially because of the conjugation system, and the somewhat similar tones.
A German guy once told me that he felt his language was one of the hardest in the world, and all the reasons he described reminded me of English to be honest (which makes sense considering English is Germanic, with lots of Romance vocab bolted on).
I'd have to guess that the primary target of the 'renting modules' scheme would not be to home users, but, mostly to businesses. Businesses are used to 'renting' software, and maintenance fees. It would probably do well for them, especially for trying out new things, and if it didn't prove profitable, they could drop the module/service.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Many Japanese can make sense out of written Chinese, but that doesn't mean they find the spoken language easy to learn. From their point of view, it seems to be every bit as devoid of logic as English. Despite having borrowed a lot of words from Chinese, the underlying language is very different from Japanese.
A multilingual Japanese once told me that Spanish is the easiest foreign language for Japanese speakers to learn. Its grammer is regular and it uses about the same set of sounds that Japanese does.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
In the short term, Apple is a powerful force for eroding Microsoft's monopoly. But in the long term, Apple is just as prone to lock-in as Microsoft. In fact, Apple has been hugely successful at creating lock-in and selling incremental upgrades. Moreover, if trusted computing scares you, then the idea of a single vendor being in control of both the hardware and OS design is very scary indeed: Apple can make sure that they only ship devices where the trusted-computing enforced lock-in is already firmly in place (and not removable).
In the long term, the only salvation from such initiatives is software that is truly open and Free. In cases where the OS actually makes the capabilities of the trusted computing chip available to the end user, then everything changes: we can use the chip as a guard against viruses and malware by authorizing trusted keys (e.g. Debian's or Red Hat's). As long as the end user is in control, they can bypass the authentication when required (e.g. to run code they wrote themselves).
Obviously this all breaks down if the hardware manufacturers only ship computers with pre-loaded certifications for big-name vendors (Microsoft) and no way for the user to add new certs. In such a world, the end-user can't be said to "own" the hardware they buy in any meaningful way. Luckily I think that dystopia isn't realistic: running Linux servers is important (and profitable!) so there will always be a market for commodity gear that we can use to run Free operating systems.
Perhaps the problem is with you, not these people making the mistakes. Let me explain, many people agree that what matters in communication is the ability to understand the other person, I'd say 90% of the time when a common language mistake is made the listener or reader can understand what the speaker or writer meant.
Grammar and spelling change, if enough Yale grads begin using "him and me" that will likely become acceptable. Besides people are very smart and we're very good at finding patterns, most of the so-called common mistakes come from a divergence in the normal patterns of grammar and spelling. If a child says "the cat runed away" it's not because the child is dumb, it's because they discovered a pattern and attempted to normalize it.
Win a signed Stephen Carpenter ESP Guitar from the Deftones: http://def-tag.com/?r=0008781
I agree 100%. My mom, for example, downloaded OpenOffice (without any prompting from me) when her trial version of MS Office ran out. If Dell had included a "free" version of MS Works with the computer, she'd probably be using that right now.
I think Microsoft is forgetting how they came to be dominant in the first place: bundling, hiding the cost of the software in with the hardware purchase. Even if they end up paying about the same in the long run, customers are going to feel like they are paying more.
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
This is an issue that both liberals and conservatives should be united on.
Exactly. As a conservative/libertarian (not to be confused with the current White House occupants), I despise DRM because it's an assault on real property rights. It means that I own my computer only in the sense that I paid for it. The Cato Institute has an excellent analysis here.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
iPhone eating Windows Mobile's lunch? What planet are you on?
Windows Mobile isn't going anywhere, and the iPhone is not going to replace the hundreds of Windows Mobile phone models out there. Wanna take a guess why? Windows Mobile is more open.