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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

With a web based OS...

[Thelasko]

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

Here's hoping....

[Jaysyn]

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

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:This is great news!

[Wiarumas]

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

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: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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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?