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Windows Is Dead – Long Live Midori?
parvenu74 writes "A story from Infoworld is suggesting that the days of Windows are numbered and that Microsoft is preparing a web-based operating system code-named Midori as a successor. Midori is reported to be an offshoot of Microsoft Research's Singularity OS, an all-managed code microkernel OS which leverages a technology called software isolated processes (SIPs) to overcome the traditional inter-thread communications issues of microkernel OSes."
Remind me again how this differs from a Thin Client?
web-based == subscription model.
And quite pointless with people moving to mobile devices instead of desktops. While mobile Internet connections are increasing in availability and bandwidth, they are not mainstream enough to allow Windows to be completely replaced by the model.
I don't get it, why would I want to trust Microsoft, or anyone, with all my files?
I think I like the current model, I buy a computer and it is mine, I can put whatever I want on it, and I can use it with or without the internet.
I guess when my unreliable comcast cable modem drops offline I guess that means a worthless terminal till it comes back up. This is an improvement....how?
If ignorance is bliss, the world is full of blissful people
They can't even manage to get out a decent web based mail service and they want to have a whole OS on the web? Really?
I'm not too familiar with MS's services on the web but is there one that displays MS's competency on a web environment?
[alk]
I can't imagine my mom wanting to shell out money over and over to Microsoft a la subscription just to play solitaire, check her email and play flash games, can you envision your parents wanting to do this?
Furthermore, I can't imagine my mom wanting to bother trying to set up wireless in ANY Linux distro, can you envision your grandparents doing so? My mom will likely buy an Apple, my sister & her husband will buy an Apple, everyone I know will by one instead of wanting to put up with another monthly bill. Really. Steve Jobs marketing machine will win this one.
web-based == man in the middle attacks
Can you imagine a MITM on your OS?
Bad guys would no longer need physical access to your box,
Only access to your network.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
If MS kills Windows as we know it an replaces it with Midori, it'll take at least 5 years to happen, and Midori will still be called Windows.
MS is a slow, lumbering marketing company, not a fast, agile technology company. They'll never walk away from the Windows brand.
Even if high speed wireless internet access was as wide spread as cellphone access, would that still be enough? There are enough dead zones, that many people would not be able to access their computer at all, which is unacceptable. Also, people seem to forget that the wireless is pretty limited. It works well for now, when people are just downloading email, or browsing a few websites, but I think the amount of bandwidth to run (what would amount to) a remote desktop connection, multiplied by the number of people using windows, would quickly overload any kind of wireless setup we could get. Obviously not everybody would have to use wireless connections, but if everybody who was currently using their desktop on wireless started using a remote desktop on wireless, the system would undergo a lot of strain.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
The medium is the message as some wise guy once put it. It makes sense that in the future Information will also encapsulate the functionality to manipulate it and these units will zip around the network on demand. It is a paradigm shift in that monolithic applications with a bagillion features will be obsolete - the units will contain just enough functionality to manipulate them and mash them together. The OS in this role sinks to the level of what the BIOS is today - essential but unnoticed.
Shh.
Oh, shut up already. These jokes are getting old and redundant. My Windows XP has not crashed a single time in months. Windows is no longer associated with BSOD.
Sorry, but Windows will always be associated with BSOD in my mind. I never forgive, and I rarely forget.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
All data and stuff gets placed into Microsoft server and you are using your terminal only to access it - from anywhere that you want.
I'm sorry: I trust no company with all of my data. That's why I don't use Google docs or Microsoft's current document offering. And now they want to store all of my data? I, for one, will gladly continue using Linux.
To believe for a moment that the "days of Windows is numbered" is idiotic. Consider a few points:
1. The PC continues to be a dominant gaming platform which will never fly with a thin client OS or internet OS.
2. 9 out of 10 (my guess, might be higher) businesses out there will never consider an OS that is entirely dependent on a working internet connection. (And don't counter with "well, what about web services companies?" I mean top to bottom activities in a single company such as accounting, HR, project management, security services, legal, design, PR, etc.)
3. There will be a relative correlation between productivity and your internet speed. Not exciting.
4. Most of us would like to remain reasonably productive in environments where there is no internet connection (planes, trains, parks, beach, over seas, etc.)
5. People seem to forget that the browsers themselves as well as many of the browser features that they depend on (Flash, Movies, ActiveX, PDF, Java) all depend on some version of an OS with a "more than thin client and more than kernal" layer to begin with...
Singularity OS is a smart move (managed code, new process security measures). And you'll see a MAJOR uptick in SaaS and "cloud computing" (whatever the hell that means these days) from Microsoft, but we will not be rid of a client OS from Microsoft in this lifetime.
For a significant number of people Windows is a hidden cost in the total price of buying a computer. They aren't used to having to pay for their OS directly and suddenly having to do so may prove to be a psychological barrier to a lot of them. Just something to consider.
this is getting old and so are you
blog
I'm sorry: I trust no company with all of my data
I see this a lot on Slashdot, and I wonder... where do you keep your money? Banks are companies, as are brokerages. If you bought a house, there is a stunning amount of personal data stored with your realtor and title agency. Schools contain your entire academic record. Hell, the big 3 credit agencies have records that are very easy to access.
Why a mistrust for Google, but not these other services that people use so regularly? Or is everyone here just universally paranoid? :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Banks are covered by specific laws.
Online services are barely covered and privacy policies are wobbly at best. (They can't even statuate if EULAs are binding contracts for fuck's sake)
Can you imagine a MITM on your OS? FBI, RIAA, DHS, your local Police Department, Marketing/Advertising companies, everyone else who wants info about you would no longer need physical access to your box
We are all just people.
A very close parallel to what you're talking about already exists- several of them, in fact. Ulteo, for instance, provides a web-based Linux desktop that runs OpenOffice.
If you really want to push the Office-as-a-service idea though, it would be simple enough to do it by taking something like splashtop and put in a VNC, NX, or SSH client, then connect to a grid of application publishing servers. Very simple, pretty clean, and dead cheap to develop. No need for a new OS. The connectivity requirements would be pretty steep, but they always are for systems like this, which (IMHO) is why most people don't use them.
Not apples and oranges. The bank doesn't just have your money. They have information in bucketloads about you... they know everyone you've ever written a check to, everyone you've ever paid electronically, and how much money you make and spend.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Anybody ever heard of Citrix? This technology and theory has been around for years, dated all the way back to Windows for Work groups. The concept of multiple users connecting to a server through the internet or dumb terminal to serve up Windows or a windows like application is nothing new -- now taking it consumer grade is a different story. If it works like RDP and on the RDP protocol it will be bloated junk...if it works like Citrix and on the ICA protocol then bandwidth would never be an issue. Citrix can work off of 56k modems serving up nothing more than a picture and keystrokes. Sure there is a little lag, but nothing you're not already use to using a modem anyway. Big corporations have gone to virtual computing for quite sometime, especially for travel. I predict they will not only go to virtual computing options for consumers, but probably run the whole thing on VM -- most large companies are doing that now for there employees.
You obviously don't remember the days of Xterms running over 10baseT from a Sun server. Fully graphical workstations playing xtank and so on remotely on less bandwidth than high speed wireless.
You do realize that even 10BaseT is faster than most cable modems in the US, right? In fact, the situation is even worse than you'd expect, seeing as how most Internet connections in the US are set up to give downloads more throughput than uploads. A heavyweight application like Office would require a much more symmetric connection than users have today.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
Nah. They just break it up.
Want Windows? Cool! Just $10 / month!
Word? Excel? Outlook? No prob, just another $10 / month.
Project? Access? PowerPoint? No sweat, just pull out another $20 / month each.
You want SharePoint? Exchange? Easy, just $5 / month per seat!
Want each of those? Microsoft is making $90 / month off a single person. For the amount of functionality it provides, plenty of people would pay that. That's over $1000 / year. And no one can save money by sticking to old versions! As software ages and settles, more people are satisfied with old software. A subscription model erases this problem for Microsoft, who sees that trend as probably the most dangerous possible roadblock to growth.
Maybe not in your business, but in my industry wireless is the only option. Between forklift operators, runners, and other misc. warehouse crew, there is no way to run cable.
We do have wired phones, wired servers, etc. But the core of the business is warehouse distribution, and in order to track product our warehouse employees need wireless.
Also, money is fungible. Put dollars in, get dollars out. There's no real problem provided that the bank doesn't do anything to improperly endanger the "get dollars out" part. But your data can be read and put to use by app provider and you'd never know.
If I have to be connected to the internet in order to use the MS Office functionality... no thanks.
In fact, I've got MS Office functionality, whether I'm connected or not, for FREE, because I use OpenOffice.org. That's a better price than $10/month, although I'm sure that there are marketers that can convince people that it's better to pay $120/year than $0/year. Maybe if you use pictures of hip young people paying $10/month and dancing in a groovy way to hip music, you might have a lot of twenty-somethings lining up to give you $10/month, even if all you give them is a laugh behind their backs.
You are welcome on my lawn.
> As software ages and settles, more people are satisfied with old software.
Exactly. It's true for operating systems, applications, and hardware. The biggest aids to the growth of the PC were it's weaknesses. OS bugs. Application issues. Hardware inadequacies. You needed the next incremental upgrade because this one doesn't work worth a crap. And the one after that when that one didn't do the job either.
At some point, the hardware gets fast enough for the average bloke, and hardware sales start to slump. Office tools get good enough, and sales fall off. The OS gets good enough, why upgrade? The companies who became giant players on this growth paradigm will need to adopt new business models. And probably be a lot smaller.
Mind you, I can see a continued although reduced need for bleeding edge hardware. There will always be gamers and others who are pushing the envelope. How fast does my video need to render? As fast as I can conveniently afford.
But I am having a more difficult time seeing an overriding need for another version of Windows, and I just can't make myself believe we need yet another version of Office. To most of my peers, Office 2000 still works fine, thank you very much.
It occurred to me the other day that I was writing a document in a version of Office that just had it's eighth birthday, on a machine built in 2003, using an OS from 2001. And I said to myself "Cool. I am finally spending more time using my PC than I am upgrading it." And that is as it should be. We are over the technology hump, and no amount of marketing can call that back.
Even the guaranteed vendor pipeline, where nearly all new PCs run whatever latest OS managed to escape from Redmond, has to eventually slump, for the simple reason that whatever is currently on your desk meets your needs. (Imagine that?)
Given all that, what, exactly, does Microsoft have to sell? Or, more accurately, how the heck do they maintain explosive growth in a mature market? It's got to be preying on someone's mind.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.