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."

Comments

Prediction

[kalpol]

web-based == subscription model.

Re:Prediction

[garcia]

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.

Re:Prediction

[TubeSteak]

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.

Re:Prediction

[CastrTroy]

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.

Re:Prediction

[icsx]

Exactly. Microsoft is preparing for virtual computing which means that you have only screen, keyboard and small terminal with internet connection at home. All data and stuff gets placed into Microsoft server and you are using your terminal only to access it - from anywhere that you want.

Re:Prediction

[Hatta]

How does one have a web-based operating system anyway? If you're running your OS inside a web browser, what is the web browser running on? Is it just turtles all the way down?

Re:Prediction

[snl2587]

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.

Re:Prediction

[MightyYar]

If the replacement rate for a desktop computer is 3 years, and everyone buys for $250 and Windows for $130 - that's less than $400 over 3 years... or just over $10 monthly.

If I had a website that offered full MS Office functionality and compatibility for $10/month... wanna bet I'd have some takers? They'd need 366 million customers to equal their current revenue using this model.

Worldwide, PC sales are supposed to grow to over 250 million/year by 2010, so while their target would be ambitious - it is feasible if they could rope roughly half of new PC buyers into this new model.

Re:Prediction

[sxltrex]

If that's true all I have to say is:

Midori's sour.

Thanks, I'm here all week!

Re:Prediction

[negRo_slim]

If I had a website that offered full MS Office functionality and compatibility for $10/month...

I concur, there would be probably be tremendous interest. I just wonder if it being a Microsoft branded product wouldn't be a detriment to it's success as opposed to it being judged purely on the merits of what it offers. But allow me to play the devil's advocate for a moment and suggest for gamers this might not be such a bad thing. (Potentially) Less OS on the hard disk could mean lower resource utilization and I'm sure a few enterprising users would find further ways to enhance performance maybe something a kin to tuning current Window's services so as to prevent unnecessary network access?

Re:Prediction

[negRo_slim]

Bad guys would no longer need physical access to your box, Only access to your network.

Any computer connected to a network is a security risk on one level or another.

Re:Prediction

[Dogtanian]

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.

No, no! You're only allowed to use that phrase if you welcome our data-hoarding overlords!

Re:Prediction

[MightyYar]

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? :)

Re:Prediction

[Ariastis]

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)

Re:Prediction

[nizo]

Wanna check your email? That'll be $1. Wanna post to ./?? That'll be $2.

[after searching Clippy pops up]

I'm sorry, I was unable to process your credit card number on file. To see all of the search results, please enter a valid credit card number.

Re:Prediction

[Original Replica]

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

Re:Prediction

[Pincus]

The 366 million seems ambitious, but an online model would also curtail some piracy. The equivalent of copying my Windows disk would be to give out my i-Windows login, meaning they would just use my desktop.

Of course, why not, especially if the cost is high, share it between users? Especially if it will support multiple desktops, won't every household maintain one OS for multiple users?

Re:Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

# ln -s /usr/bin/firefox /sbin/init

Re:Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

Or is everyone here just universally paranoid? :)

[Posting as AC for obvious privacy reasons]

Why do you want to know?

Re:Prediction

[debatem1]

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.

Re:Prediction

[MightyYar]

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.

Re:Prediction

[ivucica]

If there was a free alternative with sufficient compatibility which I don't have to pay for, I would still not subscribe to such a service.

The problem arises when I start being forced to do it. For example, when the machines start using trusted computing to expel a free OS and a free office suite.

Re:Prediction

[infinite9]

Judging form the success of the furniture rental business model, I'd say they can charge $24.95+ a month and still be a huge success.

Re:Prediction

[snl2587]

Yeah, I'm talking about personal data. The "whole IT team" is me alone. And I still would rather do it myself.

Besides, letting somebody else deal with it also offloads a good bit of liability.

Tell that to your customers if they ever sue you. One thing I've learned from handling sensitive information in the workplace is that if you collect it, you are responsible for it no matter where you store it/send it.

Re:Prediction

[jkabrahamson]

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.

Re:Prediction

[quanticle]

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.

Re:Prediction

[quanticle]

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.

All of these institutions are covered by privacy laws. Example, my school cannot just give my academic record away to anyone that pays. The person asking must either be an employee of the state Department of Education, or a third party that I or my parents have given explicit permission to. Banks, realtors, brokerages, are covered by even stricter laws.

Contrast this with the situation regarding Google, Facebook, et. al. There are no laws covering your personal e-mail. There's no privacy (implied or otherwise) on your Facebook page. If there were, I'm sure that many more of us would be comfortable using these services.

Re:Prediction

[quanticle]

The bank does have all that information. However, the bank is also covered by federal and state privacy laws that prohibit it from disclosing that information to third parties. Many of these online companies, on the other hand, base their entire business model around disclosing the data that you provide them to affiliates.

Re:Prediction

[nko321]

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.

Re:Prediction

[hamid2c]

About a year ago, I read some of the papers published by Singularity researchers. As much as I remember, there weren't anything about a thin client or a web-based OS. In fact, the main idea of their OS is using programming languages techniques (static type-safety and static memory-safety) to isolate different processes. If you look at Singularity from a hardware view , there is just one big address space (and its corresponding process) but in reality there are many Software Isolated Processes managed by something like JVM or CLR (.Net run-time). As a consequence, the OS gets rid of all of those hardware-costs related to management of different address spaces in Memory Unit. To the extent I remember from my OS course, current operating systems use virtual memory to prevent one process from reading or modifying another process's address space (every process has one big address space from 0 to for example 4 GB and there is no way to have any kinda access to address spaces of other processes. i.e. the physical memory is completely hidden from the processes and they can see only their own virtual memory). As you might know, Virtual memory is completely interlinked with hardware and has its own cost. However, if they don't use hardware to isolate processes, what they use instead? To answer this question, suppose that you have a program that you are sure about its memory safety. That is the program doesn't violate its own memory boundary. In such a case you don't have to check this invariant at run-time on every memory access (or give the program a virtual address space). In fact, Singularity verifies the memory safety of every program before running it. Programs are not pure binaries and are some kinda intermediate languages like java byte-code or MSIL that can be easily verified. You may think by this kinda verification you have a bigger opportunity to download and execute codes on the fly something like JVM and java applets. After all, with having these light processes, you can think of a micro-kernel OS consisting of many processes communicating with each other.

Re:Prediction

[PixelSlut]

But you don't need consistent access to that data at all times of day. Storing your work documents with Google or something (in a non-backup way) strikes many of us as a way to potentially screw yourself over when you suddenly desperately need a certain file and your network is down or something.

Also, in terms of practicality I have to say that I wouldn't know what to do with a few hundred thousand dollars myself. What am I going to do, stuff it under my bed? I feel like there is a purpose in having institutions that make it their business to do with my money what I can't really do myself. For me it's not out of paranoia that I don't store files with Google, but that I don't see the point. I don't NEED Google to store my files, I've been doing it for years myself.

Re:Prediction

[Chris Mattern]

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.

Re:Prediction

[iceborer]

They can't even statuate if EULAs are binding contracts for fuck's sake

I believe that you may have envocabularized a word who existence was not heretofore knowledged.

Re:Prediction

[djp928]

You don't understand what a thin client is.

Think if your iPod, every time you turned it on, had to connect via WiFi to a server at your house in order to do anything at all. A thin client has just a tiny OS that basically has no functionality whatsoever except the ability to make a network connection to a server and get you logged in. Windows thin clients are usually run off WinCE or Embedded XP, but you generally have zero interaction with the OS burned into the firmware--it's only there to pop up an RDP screen and let you connect to some other machine.

If all your iPod could do was connect via WiFi to your home computer and run iTunes on your home computer and stream the music back to your headphones, then you could consider it a thin client. But the GP was right--your iPod is just a mini computer. It has its own OS and it runs iTunes locally, not remotely.

Re:Prediction

[gbjbaanb]

1. single address spaces are more common than you think. Not everyone runs Windows (where virtual memory models - in software - were put in place because of legacy CPU architectures)(read up on Large Memory Model windows programming with near and far pointers).
Such things are obsolete today (on 64-bit architectures), but still around in the form of PAE on 32-bit.

2. VMM access is done through hardware, this is not slow.

3. Often the issue with memory safety is not 1 app overwriting anothers, but one app overwriting the same apps - a lot of code runs in "aggregated" processes (eg a web server running code).

4. Remember that a managed memory model (with a GC) does not guarantee memory safety. You can easily get objects that are permanently used and exhaust your memory as a simple example.

5. even if the managed memory model got rid of all the "hardware-costs", it introduces much more serious software costs. In the singularily overview the authors admit they had to make big changes to the GC and admit it is not suitable for all types of application (quote: For example, a
generational garbage collector may introduce seconds-long pauses in program execution, which
would disrupt a media player or operating system. On the other hand, a real-time collector
suitable for the media player might penalize a computational task)

6. Next do a search for 'Java memory safety' and see the links that pop up.

Singularity is interesting, but I doubt they'd really make an OS out of it, especially a web-based one. Possibly some of it will find its way into Windows though.

Re:Prediction

[Bugs42]

Nonesense.
It was a perfectly cromulent word, the use of which embiggens us all.

Re:Prediction

[Lord Apathy]

Well it all depends on how you use it. Back when I was married to The Bitch we had one master computer running linux that we both used. Sharing time on it was a bitch because I used it for work, and she used it for play. To solve this issue I rounded up a old '486, a 20 MB HD, and a 15" display. Piece of crap. I installed a very slimmed down linux, just enough to boot and connect the X server to central host.

She had her play computer and I had a work computer and everything was fine.

Actually there is was a interesting turn on that set up. After we separated her and some of her cult buddies broke in to my house and stole that X terminal I made her. I found out through a friend that they did that because they didn't me reading the email she left on "it" or having access to her icq logs. I found it very amusing that she had stole the wrong computer.

And if you wondering. Yes, I did look through the icq logs and email. I did show them to the judge and use them in court. I found out her nuttiness was more nutty then I ever imagined. I found out she had been abusing my son and what she had planed. So if your going to bitch about her privacy or some such BS, save it.

Re:Prediction

[westlake]

I wonder... where do you keep your money? Banks are companies, as are brokerages.
.

The banker is not a blabbermouth.

He isn't looking over my shoulder whenever I dictate a letter.

He isn't reading our internal reports and planning documents - and - no matter how richly deserved - he isn't feeding the minutes of our daily conference calls to Scott Adams and The Simpsons.

Re:Prediction

[kramer2718]

If I had a website that offered full MS Office functionality and compatibility for $10/month... wanna bet I'd have some takers?

Interesting thought...

On the other hand, Google is making their on-line office utils more and more capable every day. Think there might be a price war? How do you undercut free?

Also, companies will feel pretty queasy about their highly sensitive data being hosted on some MS server somewhere...

Re:Prediction

[PopeRatzo]

If I had a website that offered full MS Office functionality and compatibility for $10/month...

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.

Re:Prediction

[Petaris]

It depends on how your actually doing things. If you are "downloading" office to your computer/terminal and running it there and uploading things as you go you might have constant connections for office. If you are simply viewing a remote display and interacting with it then the only thing you are sending to the server is keyboard and mouse data (short of uploading other data like audio or files from a USB drive) and the only thing you are likely downloading is screen data (essentially live streaming video and perhaps audio). So you *could* be fine with more bandwidth down then up. It all depends on how the system is designed. Those Xterms playing xtank weren't really doing anything local other then sending keyboard data and receiving video data, all the processing and work was being done on the Sun server and it was staying there. That is not saying that you wont hit a road block as far as bandwidth is concerned, just saying that having lower upload speeds might not be an issue.

Re:Prediction

[roc97007]

> 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.

Re:Prediction

[mpeskett]

How do you undercut free? Why don't you ask Microsoft that, they've been doing pretty well despite the presence of free alternatives for some time now. God knows how, but if there's anyone who knows how to compete with free and win, its Microsoft.

Re:Prediction

[westlake]

Nah. They just break it up.
.

Why the hell would they want to do that?

Sun has spent almost ten years and two or three hundred million dollars trying to hammer Star Office and OpenOffice.org into a plausible alternative to MS Office.

Microsoft just keeps moving the goal posts.

The mix will vary depending on the target audience - but there will always be one or two pieces that FOSS doesn't have - at least not in so mature and accessible a form.

The student gets OneNote, the church gets Outlook and Publisher.

The geek always underestimates Microsoft's willingness to compete on price. Microsoft sold MS-DOS for $44 in 1980. Two hundred dollars below the price of CP/M 86.

There are by some estimates a billion Windows users on the planet.

Microsoft doesn't need a $1000/yr/user to maintain its current revenues - it only needs $60/yr. $5/mo.

Think about those numbers and ask yourself how many FOSS developers have a reasonable prospect of extracting $5 a month from their mass-market user base - -
which one hopes that - when you past the marque projects like Firefox and Frozen Bubble -
is not an oxymoron.

Re:Prediction

[Kaukomieli]

If the replacement rate for a desktop computer is 3 years, and everyone buys for $250 and Windows for $130 - that's less than $400 over 3 years... or just over $10 monthly.

But alas - the replacementrate for a desktopcomputer seldom is only 3 years - and especially office-software sees an even longer time of use.

Re:Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

What? Do you work for Citrix?

You describe thin client architecture, or hosted computing. I totally agree, this is known, established technology. But from your comment you don't seem to understand these in any amount of detail.

Both Citrix and RDP clients, and moreover X, can transmit primitives to a client when dealing with a hosted application. However, generally "serving up nothing more than a picture" is slower than issuing higher level commands as far as performance is concerned. In simple terms, telling the client "draw dialog box asking 'Do you want to continue | Yes | No'" is less bandwidth than a bitmap of the dialog box.

X, which I am most familiar with, takes this concept very far. You can run an application off a remote computer (X client), which will still use your *local* video card/computer (running the X server) ((yes, client/server notation is kind of reversed in X)) and run 3-d apps over a relatively low bandwidth connection with fluidity. Imagine trying to do that with a compressed bitmap being pushed over the pipe -- it would be a bad slideshow.

RDP does transmit high level instructions, and can be relatively fast. It even has switches for "bitmap caching" of common things, and can compress data too. In my experience deploying the two, RDP is far from bloated and universally faster when compared to ICA, although ICA definitely offers a greater degree of control and customization in the server environment. We do use ICA exclusively, but I think it is primarily for business and historical reasons.

From your last sentence:

>'probably run the whole thing on VM -- most large companies are doing that now for there employees'

I assume you are not mixing up running a virtual machine on a server to host a Windows Citrix Server / running a Virtual Windows session for a remote client and running a Windows Server to host a Citrix application. The first is a Virtual Machine, the second is just a hosted application. You didn't really separate the two concepts.

My corporation runs Windows Server and has Citrix hosted applications for our main five business apps. I detest our setup for controlling access (which was handed to me and I am in the process of changing) which used a Juniper VPN host to allow clients access to specific servers, but that is a separate story.

Re:Prediction

[Matey-O]

Funny. That's about what folks pay for an all-you-can-eat internet connected cellphone plan.

Re:Prediction

[Nethemas the Great]

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 obviously must be living in the third world because here in the US we really don't have anything resembling the slow speed of a 10baseT.

Of course if you're one of those poor fools who fell for a service "advertising" such slow speeds you'll often find them doing fun things like randomly dropping or delaying packets on you.

Rural American service though is by far the most exceptional. In fact if you're a part of rural America you have two really nice options. A dial-up modem over high quality copper cables capable of letting you zip along at 24.4Kbps (note the small 'b') or a snazzy 1Mbps down 200Kbps up (give or take) satellite rig with ultra-low 700ms - 1500ms latency.

This new OS from Microsoft is definitely ready to take center stage! I can hardly wait to wait.

Re:Prediction

[x2A]

By getting there first? Yes there's linux now, but MS had DOS out the decade before. People knew the name Microsoft before the Linux kernel was even a single line of code. MS also talk corporate. I recently visited one of my first corporate level clients, and simple they don't care at all (exagerating slightly; it's definitely lower down on their priority list) about which is technically better, they care about what happens if you die, a machine breaks, a supplier drops out; are there any potential non-redundant parts to what you provide that they shouldn't rely on. They wanna see financial reports, know you have a roadmap, know there's at least two people who can do any one job. It's one of those self perpetuating reverse-of-a-catch-22 things; Microsoft are successful because they're successful. So many people will pay them money because they're going to be around for quite some time because so many people will pay them money etc etc. Like money, the only reason everyone wants it is because everyone wants it. (don't say "I don't!" cuz you so know what my point is!) :-)

Oh, and they put their product in schools so when kids grow up, that's what they know how to use, that's what they're comfortable with.

TLA conflict

[Bryansix]

There is a Three Letter Acronym conflict with SIP as SIP already means Session Initiation Protocol.

Re:TLA conflict

[Red Flayer]

Perhaps some kind of fight to the death will resolve this.

Meh, it's a tie.

Windows is dead?

[Dunbal]

Personally I will wait to see what netcraft has to say about that.

Thin Client?

[Bryansix]

Remind me again how this differs from a Thin Client?

Re:Thin Client?

[ninjapiratemonkey]

Midori is going to be coded to crash at least once every 24 hours to ease regular Windows users into this "new" technology. Other than that, it's the same.

Re:Thin Client?

[Akaihiryuu]

It doesn't...they are describing a thin client. While I agree that thin clients are nice in a lot of situations, there is no way in hell I would use a thin client as my primary OS. And I will not use a thin client at all (well, outside of a corporate/work environment anyway) unless *I* control the server for it. If I want to put a couple thin client terminals around my house that run off my Linux server, fine. I'm curious how they think a thin client will work as a primary OS anyway. It won't...you have to have SOME OS on the computer. And I really don't think anyone is going to be using PXE over the internet.

Re:Thin Client?

[Hairy Heron]

Windows is no longer associated with BSOD.

Exactly. During the early days of Vista it was the Red Screen of Death.

Re:Thin Client?

[mlts]

It seems that every ten years, someone re-invents the thin client.

First it was dumb terminals connected to a mainframe, then to a serial port box so one can connect to a UNIX box.
Then came XStations which used various (direct, indirect, broadcast) forms of XDMCP to find a host to download microcode and run apps from.
Then, it was JavaStations where people talked about fast broadband access to stuff on the ISP's server, and not to worry about all their private documents being stored offsite.

This just seems like more of the same, perhaps an offshoot of cloud computing. It will work for a couple niches here and there, but as a whole, Net based operating systems will fail, as people want to keep their stuff private on their own systems.

Same disadvantages apply. Security of stored files for example -- I trust my external TrueCrypt encrypted drive that uses both a long passphrase and a set of keyfiles a lot more to securely store my Word documents than I do some random ISP's computer.

Re:Thin Client?

[Legion_SB]

The "crash" jokes may be old, but depending on usage patterns, Windows XP still requires a healthy regimen of "reinstall and start fresh" for long-term use.

In my XP usage lately, I have been unamused at how my torrent client starts throwing "insufficient resources" errors, and the entire XP windowing system starts failing to draw windows correctly, even though there's absolutely no lack of free RAM or hard drive space. Looks like it's time for me to dig that XP disk out again...

Re:Thin Client?

[jcr]

My Windows XP has not crashed a single time in months.

Lucky you. (Don't kid yourself, that's luck.)

Windows is no longer associated with BSOD.

Sorry to break it to you, but your experience is a single datum, which doesn't counter decades of suffering by millions of other windows users.

-jcr

Re:Thin Client?

[kaizendojo]

Remind me again how this differs from a Thin Client?

Remind ME how this differs from a Mainframe...it's "central scrutinizer" control all over again.

So I guess we can expect to see the old Apple "Big Brother" commercial dusted off and the "personal computer revolution" started all over again.

Well if history is going to repeat itself and I'm going to go through puberty all over again, I'm getting laid earlier this time.

Re:Thin Client?

[Anonymous Coward]

I concur with the parent post that

These jokes are getting old and redundant. My Windows XP has not crashed a single time in months. Windows is no longer associa [NO CARRIER]

Re:Thin Client?

[Lumpy]

Actually midori works great. I have hacked on it for over 3 years now.

http://midori.sourceforge.net/

It has been a embedded linux distro that Linus himself helped form for nearly 5 years now...

I see that microsoft has even started stealing other names, or they are fully embracing linux and OSS finally.

Re:Thin Client?

[Danse]

"Oh, shut up already. These jokes are getting old and redundant."

Ah, did someone called your baby UGLY?

I think someone called his baby buggy.

Re:Thin Client?

[Buelldozer]

Never caught on? How can you say that?

A TON of companies are using either straight TS or TS with Citrix on top. It's a dynamite solution for remote workers, helping to secure data, keeping a standardized environment, and providing usable desktops to low power users.

In the SMB space I see clients with as few as 4 people in the office with some kind of TS server installed because of how well it allows you to work remotely.

"Back to the mainframe" has caught on in a HUGE way.

With a web based OS...

[Thelasko]

what am I going to do with all of that fancy hardware I bought to run Vista?

Re:With a web based OS...

[ivan256]

You'll need it to render the silverlight apps.

Re:With a web based OS...

[Austerity Empowers]

It makes a great ottoman. On a cold day, plug it in, voila, warm feet!

Huh?

[circlingthesun]

I though Midori was an open source web browser

Re:Huh?

[bigstrat2003]

No, she's an anime character!

Re:Huh?

[Reverend528]

or a flavor of linux

Melon-flavored linux.

A Link to the Print Version?

[phantomcircuit]

A link to the print version in TFS? This cannot be slashdot... damn DNS must have been poisoned!

Re:A Link to the Print Version?

[Oidhche]

My questions is, what is the damn completely unrelated picture and the dumb banner doing on a PRINT version? Do those people think I piss ink?

Re:A Link to the Print Version?

[commodoresloat]

Wow slashdot's running on a Mac now?

Here's hoping....

[Jaysyn]

... that it doesn't suck! Linux still needs competition to keep us on our toes!

Why?

[Darkstorm]

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?

Midori is a Linux distro from Transmeta

[3seas]

Midori Linux from Transmeta - Linus T.

Guess MS will just have to change the name....

Re: Midori is a Linux distro from Transmeta

[edalytical]

And a liqueur! Midori.

Re:Midori is a Linux distro from Transmeta

[TorKlingberg]

It's Japanese for "green".

This is great news!

[Channard]

I hope this is the first of many operating systems to be named after porn stars.

Re:This is great news!

[Wiarumas]

They named it after a porn star because of its gaping (security) holes and abundance of viruses.

Re:This is great news!

[Arionhawk]

I hope you're being sarcastic, because Midori is just a feminine Japanese name meaning green.

Re:This is great news!

[Bobb Sledd]

No that can't be right. Pornstars are usually clean and cum with some form of protection.

Windows dead? Dobut it.

[loconet]

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?

People will move to Apple.

[jgarra23]

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.

Re:People will move to Apple.

[fmobus]

my main gripe with Network Manager is precisely its simplicity. It doesn't tell me when a connection to some wifi network failed. E.g., I tell it to connect to a given network (clicking its entry in the applet's popup)... it then tries something (it doesn't tell me what it is doing) and fails silently. I just fucking hate this. I have switched to using just iwconfig, and having a couple of scripts for the networks I access the most. Just works.

So far, I haven't seen a perfect wifi network GUI. I'd go for a larger dialog, showing me the available networks in a list and a console-like box telling me what is going on when it attempts to connect.

Win8, codename Midori

[Dracos]

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.

Information encapsulation

[headkase]

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.

Defense against Linux boxes?

[Sockatume]

The Eee and its ilk have shown that people are willing to buy Windowsless boxes, which is an affront to Microsoft's business model. You have to wonder if Midori is a "plan B" to allow them to continue to get revenue from Linux users. Alan, Bob and Clarence may well be willing to pay $10 a month for "Windows access" on their Eees if it lets them use Office, and this way Microsoft have a guaranteed revenue stream whatever OS people actually buy with their machine. Especially if it's agressively marketed and bundled.

No longer associated with BSOD?

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

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.

Re:No longer associated with BSOD?

[eebra82]

In that case, I suggest that you install one of the first Linux dists and see how much you are willing to forgive and forget. That kind of thinking is just silly as everything sucks at some point, which is why improvements are being made.

Re:No longer associated with BSOD?

[MyLongNickName]

I never forgive, and I rarely forget.

That is a sure way to live a sad, lonely, disgruntled life.

Re:No longer associated with BSOD?

[vux984]

I can say that I've encountered a BSOD in XP but it must have been less than a dozen times spread across 5 years and over 80 computers.

Agreed and in my case it can almost always be invariably traced back to either:
1) bad network drivers, particularly wifi
2) bad video drivers
3) faulty ram
4) faulty hard drive

I've had linux kernel panics about as often, and for generally the same reasons.

Re:No longer associated with BSOD?

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking as a sado-masochist, my favorite activites after flogging and caning are re-installing Linux and installing Linux for other people.

And a drink

[T-Kir]

A green liqueur called Midori® and is a noted brand, it would be very interesting if MS did ever release an OS under that name but I think their legal team would do their homework on that one.

Re:And a drink

[dch24]

This is a transcript of MS Legal discussing a new name: (ok, it's a joke. laugh.)

SBalmer: Developers! We need a new chair, I mean a new name for the Vista code. It can't start with a V -- people already think virus with that. And it should go to eleven.

BSmith: Why don't we call it Door?

SBalmer: That's a good idea. But a web service should start with "my."

BSmith: Then call it MyDoor.

SBalmer: Web 2.0 starts with an 'i.' How do we add an 'i' to it?

BSmith: MiDoorI?

Assistant Paralegal to BSmith: Sir, that name is already trademarked.

SBalmer: Buy 'em out, boys.

Not Web Based

[ThinkFr33ly]

Midori will *not* be "web based", whatever the hell that means.

Being "internet centric" and connected to "the cloud" is not the same has being web based.

Midori is being designed in such a way that components of the OS communicate with each other in a location independent manner. API calls to a local machine are no different than API calls to a remote machine. These calls will also be "message based" (there are lots of ways to interpret that) and be transactional in nature.

Above these kinds of low level things, there will be a much tighter and more integrated connection to the network. Your profile will roam with you no matter where you are using P2P style communications similar to how Live Mesh works, although supported by core OS components instead of via RSS synchronization.

So if your idea of a "web based" OS is like what I've described above, then yes... it's web based.

But if you're thinking about a subscription-based model where a user must boot their OS "from the web" like a dumb terminal, then you're way off.

Lastly, this thing is at least 7 to 10 years off. Windows 7 will ship sometime next year (or perhaps early in 2010), and Midori isn't even out of MS Research yet. If we saw something like this before Windows 8 / 2015, I'd be damn surprised.

Re:Not Web Based

[madman101]

This is Slashdot. Don't confuse the issue with facts...

Re:Not Web Based

[pohl]

Midori is being designed in such a way that components of the OS communicate with each other in a location independent manner. API calls to a local machine are no different than API calls to a remote machine.

This strikes me as being similar to a design goal shared by Plan 9, and its spiritual descendant Inferno, both of which were based around the 9P protocol.

Proprietary Javascript

[c0d3r]

This probably means that M$ is going to add a bunch of proprietaries to Javascript through IE and start adding language features to make a proprietary platform. Even so more, probably access to the win32 api via javascript. Even more so, probably JITed c#, wait.. wasn't java supposed to do this?

What's old is new again...

[_Knots]

This is almost exactly the same thing, in spirit at least, as Inferno (http://www.vitanuova.com/inferno/), which started in 1995 and has been under continuous development since. Managed kernel, runs on real hardware, uses software isolation between managed threads... oh, and has code flying, for real, right now. :)

Don't Kid Yourself

[smackenzie]

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.

Trivia ...

[Bob-taro]

"Midori" is Japanese for "green". It is also a common female first name.

I don't know how either would apply to an OS, unless it has some connection to this.

Doom!

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see here. I run Firefox with NoScript and CookieSafeLite, so that no-one can run scripts or drop crumbs on my system without my prior approval. I pay for secure anonymous proxies because my research sometimes leads me into strange corners of the net. I hate (and don't use) Vista because, among other reasons, I trust my own judgement of what to run on my system much more than the OS vendors'.

I despair of ever teaching my family an appropriate mistrust of the net.

And now, we have a Microsoft OS that is likely *designed* to have a big 'ol pipeline to the ISP that can only be "managed" by vendor-approved apps, and will leave a trail of user-identifying info behind it for QOS purposes.

We're all doomed.

Problem with this model: Windows is a hidden cost

[the_rev_matt]

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.

404

[Dancindan84]

Desktop not found...

85 on the Bullshit Meter

[sexconker]

"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."

"Infoworld": +10
"days of Windows are numbered": +20
"web-based": +7
"code-named": +4
"microkernel": +4
"leverages" +8
"a technology called ..." + 10
"overcome": +7
"traditional": +5
"communications issues": +10

An 85 on the bullshit meter. Impressive!

Some confusion about Singularity / Midori

[argent]

With the ability today to run an OS, applications -- and even an entire PC desktop of applications -- in a virtual container using a hypervisor, the need to have the OS and applications installed natively on a PC is becoming less and less, said Brian Madden, an independent technology analyst.

Brian Madden is either talking about something else, or he's confused by references to hypervisors elsewhere. Midori will run under Hypervisors... but as one possible deployment of the OS, not as an essential part of the system. Singularity is more like ".NET" taken to the next level, with the entire OS running without hardware memory protection (let alone hypervisors), so it can run anywhere... even as a module inside another application... without any specific hardware support.

Interesting part is not that it's web-based...

[NittanyTuring]

...but that it is based on a new programming model. Many ideas are coming from the programming languages research community. All code will be type-safe and memory-safe. Interaction with the OS and other processes will make much more use of immutable data structures. Concurrency will be pervasive. It will be like one giant Erlang environment.

Wouldn't really work outside of America

[shdowhawk]

I mention America specifically as a generic example that everyone understands for one reason. "Unlimited Internet Bandwidth". This type of a model (even if it is a model where MOST of the OS is on current hardware but then randomly checks the internet for it's main "modular" pieces, vs having it all on the Hard Drive as we current do) cannot work well because other countries actually have to pay for speicifc amounts of bandwidth.

And even now, I've read random articles talking about ISPs (in america) which are considering moving to the "Pay for Bandwidth Tiers" models. WTF is the point of getting an OS that eats up all of your bandwidth just to stay turned on and be running a screen saver? It would need to randomly connect out and update things after all...

Some might argue that this is already being done, and that "caching" would solve the problem ... except that caching would negate the whole purpose of an online-OS (it needs to always have the latest thing to work well). Currently windows ALREADY connects out and randomly checks things and uses bandwidth, but it's NOT downloading entire modules as something like that would require.

Sorry, but if I lived somewhere with Pay-As-You-Go internet (I'm considering moving to Australia) I sure as hell wouldn't pay more money to an ISP on a monthly basis just so that I can use the "latest and greatest" windows.

Vaporware

[rsmith]

Anyone remember Cairo? ;-)

Could do it in BIOS, but stupid as hell to do so

[elrous0]

I guess theoretically you could build a BIOS that automatically connected to the net and downloaded your OS at every bootup. But that would be about the dumbest, most inefficient, and most laughably bandwidth-intensive computer setup I can possibly imagine.

Hardware for Vista you say...?

[BertieBaggio]

Simulate a nuclear explosion, a hurricane or the Big Bang. Down to the particle.

Or, get it to work on the Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything.

If you need more suggestions, find out what your local University/ies is/are running on their cluster.

Duh

[commodoresloat]

If you're running your OS inside a web browser, what is the web browser running on?

emacs, of course.

Re:Could do it in BIOS, but stupid as hell to do s

[CopaceticOpus]

Oh yeah? Well, how about if it downloaded your OS at every bootup... twice?

Re:Wireless?

[spxero]

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.

The new Apple OS

[lelitsch]

Motoko Kusanagi is going to kick Midori's ass.

Re:Could do it in BIOS, but stupid as hell to do s

[maxume]

This will not end well.

Trust?

[KlausBreuer]

Web based OS?
Look, we can argue back and forth about thin clients and whatever - but let's look at something important: security.
All your stuff goes over the web. Do you trust your ISP? Your gouverment? Microsoft? With all your data? Yes?

I don't.