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If Windows 7 Fails, Citrix (Not Linux) Wins
Julie188 writes "Microsoft blogger Mitchell Ashley, who has been using Windows 7 full-time, predicts that Windows 7 will fail to lure XP users away from their beloved, aging operating system — after all, Windows 7 is little more than what Vista should have been, when it shipped two years ago. But eventually old PCs must be replaced and then we'll see corporations, desperate to get out of the expense of managing Windows machines, get wise. Instead of buying new Windows 7 PCs, they could deliver virtualized XP desktops to a worker's own PC and/or mobile device. Ashley believes that Citrix's Project Independence has the right idea."
... the Citrix desktop!
If all I need is a netbook running linux (cheaper), or a newer computer, again, with linux, in order to hit the citrix backend, isn't this a net win for linux?
for when hell freezes over.
Although if Microsoft had an option in 7 to "make it look like XP" it would be a good thing.
Really, Citrix? If anyone ever asks me about it again I will go postal. Are you seriously saying you need 4 beefy servers to run 50 users' Outlook and Internet Explorer and then still have it go dog slow.
Citrix has some good ideas and technology. The implementation however is usually very bad. It's the Peoplesoft of virtualization.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
In my experience Citrix has some serious out-of-band issues with modifier keys on Linux and Mac OS X. Shift key events don't send correctly.
I type so fast that I mean "Citrix" and I get "cItrix"
I've tested this on Ubuntu 7.10, 8.04, and 8.10, and my friends report issues on Mac OS X.
Leaving your snark aside, if your point was true then we'd see a mass migration to Vista. It isn't happening, and so the future of Windows 7 remains in doubt.
How is this a 'win' for Citrix? Every time I've used it it's been buggy (From OS X Client) and slow (over normal Cable). A local virtual machine beats this hands down. In 5 years I will be able to run XP just fine on my 64bit, 5Ghz octo-core, 16GB of ram and have VMWare make a nice 32bit, 3GB of ram, dual processor for XP.
That's just propoganda nonsense. If the scenario actually holds true, then Virtual Engineering wins. This means VMWare's enterprise desktop virtualization, and possibly Citrix might get a piece. This is just a little Citrix plug. Wouldn't quite call it news.
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
Hell I'm still using Mandriva 7 on my laptop and I'm still perfectly happy with it. I am not upgrading it to the last one or tu Ubuntu (insert the latest stupid name here). My Mac is running Tiger. Don't need Leopard or some stupid shining Time machine, thank you very much.
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
I'm currently working with vdm and Sun's SunRay Server software...
It's very nice, and since the virtual desktop machines sit on the ESX cluster, hardware upgrades are too damned easy...
Install the new hardware, load esx, add to the cluster and migrate running VMs as needed (or watch them migrate automatically if any of the old cluster members are overloaded)...
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
People will leave XP for whatever the next MS milestone is.
That'd mean "Vista", which people resisted as well as they knew how.
For some people it means just not upgrading their machines, for some it means taking advantage of the Vista-to-XP downgrade licensing, for some it means just pirating XP to install on their new machines.
But no, Vista nicely demonstrated that people will not put up with whatever MS throws at them, as long as what they already have works well enough for their needs.
Everyone really is terrified by the idea of the Linux desktop aren't they.
;-)
Linux is use is growing here for people home use, even among non-programmers. It's free and fast. That's winning people. I think Linux is going main stream, and the more it does the more it will. It's coming up from the notebooks and down from the servers. It really does seam like the whole of the GNU/Linux world is going critical mass. Sorry Windows guys, you worse fears are coming.
People will leave XP for whatever the next MS milestone is.
People will leave XP for whatever the next MS millstone is.
There. Fixed that for ya.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
I'm just pontificating here but I think we might not see the vast sweeping in of some new wholly dominant OS but a fragmentation of various solutions that work. A company might run a uniform platform just for IT's sake but that doesn't mean the company next door is running the same flavor.
I really like OSX but I don't think Apple is trying to position it for the corporate desktop. The friendly Linuxes like Ubuntu remain incredibly strong.
People have been predicting the era of the thinclient for years. Their arguments were compelling but nothing happened. There's advantages to having thick clients and you're simply not going to be able to deliver graphically-intensive content over the pipe, not for at least another generation or three.
My prediction for what might make sense (not that it will 100% happen but at least is plausible) is for businesses to go with thick client closed box PC's. The phone system is the model here. There's nothing to tweak inside a PC anymore. There's not really any such thing as computer repair. At most you have a hard drive go bad, rarely a stick of ram dies. For the most part any problem is going to be software.
What we're going to see is all-in-one PC's on the typical desktop, built like the new iMac with the computer sitting in the back of the monitor. (Though there will also be the option of connecting a pure thinclient to the same network.) Easy to install, easy to replace. It will have a custom linux install on it and can run apps either locally or via citrix windows. These all-in-one PC's will also have multiple video ports so that additional monitors can be driven from the same machine. Legacy Windows apps will run in Wine, complicated legacy apps will be served via the citrix or whatever server, and new apps will probably be developed for Linux but served out for the legacy Windows boxes. That's the situation we're in now with web appps acting as the platform-agnostic way of serving data to PC, Mac, Linux, phones, etc.
I think for the typical 20 person office there will be one server in the back room running everything, maybe a failover box duplicating all of the resources. The major apps are housed locally so that they can keep working in case of a network problem but it will all phone back to the main office for synchronizaiton. Database-driven apps will work along the Google Gears model where offline copies of recent data are stored on the client or at the location's server so that failover from network problems is seamless. And because telephony is all going to IP, your phone guys and your computer guys will eventually become the same guy, it'll all fall under the aegis of "office electronic stuff."
I think we're going to see much longer product upgrade cycles since there isn't a compelling reason to upgrade every 2-3 years. We might see terminals lasting happily for 8-10 years, maybe longer. There will still be big-box PC's in the office for those who need something special but that will be the exception.
Now just because this all seems reasonable that's not to say it'll happen this way. But I just see a migration away from Windows, it seems like Microsoft simply cannot innovate fast enough these days. (maybe wishful thinking, maybe not.)
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
If he is talking about existing PC's then I agree. My gut tells me that most regular people never upgrade their operating system anyway.
If he is talking about businesses making the move when they replace equipment then I suspect he is quite wrong. Most businesses have avoided Vista not because they love XP, but because Vista has issues and requires beefy hardware. Windows 7 has two things going for it in this regard.
The first is that it does seem to be quite an improvement over Vista. I've used it continuously for the past three weeks and I quite like it. I do not like Vista. The Vista shell pisses me off for many different reasons that I won't go into here. Windows 7 fixes all of my little pet peeves and I really like the new window manager.
The second is that what was beefy expensive hardware when Vista shipped is now standard kit and quite inexpensive. Businesses in the U.S. can depreciate computers over five years. Any businesses PC purchased before 2005 will have fully depreciated by the time Windows 7 is an option and companies will be upgrading to new machines. A high-end computer purchased in 2005 or earlier probably did a terrible job running Vista. Most entry-level computers purchased in 2007-2008 to replace PCs purchased in 2002-2003 will run Windows 7 just fine.
Windows 7 will see significant uptake in businesses compared to Vista.
Citrix is freaking expensive too!
And when you look at the difficulties and TCO on a Citrix farm, you're really no better off than if you just had a 5 year technology replacement plan anyways.
And when you look at what Citrix is trying to do, centralizing application execution, compared to the rise of Web Apps and instant deployments (click-once and the like), there is really no big gain by going to Citrix unless you are locked in to proprietary software that only runs on Windows.
Honestly though, you are significantly better off sticking to a 5 year replacement plan and pushing for web and low impact distributable applications.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
1. No.
2. People keep using that word, "cloud". I do not think it means what you think it means.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
No Machine so far has been a great alternative for VNC and the like to work with remote Linux desktops and even virtually. I've tried both their free NX server edition and the FreeNX server. FreeNX still needs some love/work in making it easier to get up and going, especially on Debian. The free NX server edition works better than FreeNX because I've been experiencing refresh/display corruption over time using FreeNX and not with the retail/free NX server using the same NX client (of which is always free, currently anyway) on Windows and Linux desktops.
:)
I especially liked how extremely well NX works with slow connections, not necessarily slow on the client side, but with extremely pitiful 128kbps upload speeds from the server such as my home DSL connection when I'm away. I use to prefer VNC until I found out about NX of which is just more enhancements to the X11 protocol over SSH as far as I can tell (I'm definitely no expert as to what all goes in behind the scene). It Just Works(TM).
This space is not for rent.
"from their beloved, aging operating system "
Software does not age. People's requirements change. And that is just the problem (for MS), XP still meets the majority of needs for people.
Because the longer that XP is around, the closer Wine is to replicating the environment, and Linux is to overtaking it in usability.
That is one reason that MS wants to move forward.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
It's pretty evident from things like Google Apps and Microsoft's Live that the antiquated idea of a thin client is not going to be making its way back into the business.
Enter the era of frugality. The decade of waste is over and now, whether by regulation or by pragmatic need to survive, business will be thinking about how to maximize the money that is available. Buying a newer version of the same thing isn't going to be happening anymore. Using the hardware and software that's already available will be more important than it ever was before.
Microsoft should just get smart and start charging for service pack updates to XP. Extend the life of the product and start monetizing it in different ways.
Notes From Under *nix: blas.phemo.us
We're telling our customers (large corp. with site wide XP license) to pickup new machines in the next few months, so we can image them with XP. Word's come down that come June, our license terms with MS change and we won't be able to 'downgrade' vista machines after that.
I drank what? -- Socrates
For all the way people are clinging to XP like Linus to his blanket, it really isn't a very good modern OS. It's very, very insecure.
I've been using Vista for almost two years now, and for all the hype about how bad it is, it's pretty damn solid. After getting used to the new UI, it's pretty usable (and this is without the new very nice usability enhancements in Windows 7). I have plenty of CPU and Memory so performance isn't an issue for me with Vista. And the biggest thing? I've been running it, attached to the internet, for two years without having an anti-virus program installed, and NO ISSUES. I don't think I could do that with XP for even a single day.
The fact is, Vista, and Windows 7 to come, are simply easier to use, and far FAR more secure. Hardly perfect, of course, but then neither is any other OS out there (and much of their "security" tends to be "security through obscurity", given they don't have critical mass to make writing viruses and worms "worth-while"). But XP to me now feels a lot like IE6... a flawed, insecure, somewhat crappy solution that everyone should just get over and move on from.
Having used Vista for a while, I can say I find going back to XP really annoying. Lack of the start-menu search is huge, for one thing. The "Luna" UI is ugly and distracting (just as I thought it was when trying to move to it from Windows 2000).
Basically, I think the resistence to Vista is over-hyped, and not based on any current reality (it's more based on the huge "Vista-Ready" snafu of Microsoft and Intel, where upgrading existing hardware resulted in really crappy performance, along with the GA release of Vista not having nearly the driver and application compatibility necessary... Vista SP1 pretty much resolves those issues). And since Windows 7 is receiving rave reviews, and doesn't have the major problems that affected the initial perception of Vista, I don't think there will be a serious issue of people NOT upgrading to it.... or getting it on a new PC and wanting to "down-grade" to XP.
Vista was a necessary and painful step for Microsoft to go through. The fundamental underlying changes they made were painful to users, but necessary for security. Windows 7 refines a lot of them to be less painful (UAC), while "time" has smoothed out the other pain points (updated drivers and applications).
I really don't think there will be any huge resistence to adopting Windows 7 when it's released.
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
They are not going Mac or Linux. The apps are not there.
They are not going to Vista or Windows 7. The apps are not there, either.
Here's the essential problem: Microsoft cannot simply keep trading on backwards compatibility alone. Sooner or later, despite their best efforts to sabotage standards, the Internet will come along and eat their lunch.
In order to keep that from happening, they need new Windows-exclusive apps, not just legacy ones. Which means they need to make Windows actually an attractive platform to develop new stuff on. Which is kind of hard, when despite IE, the Web is such an attractive platform already.
For me, personally, it's bad enough to have to deal with IE. I really wouldn't look forward to fighting the Win32 API.
But at the same time, their biggest selling point to all their existing customers is, "It's what you're used to!" and "It'll run your old apps!" In order for either of those lines to work, they would have to make as little progress as possible -- the best strategy, from that point of view, would be to sell XP SP3 as a new OS, instead of writing Vista.
So, looking at that, they do seem pretty screwed. They have to innovate or the new kids will all start using Linux and OS X. But they can't innovate, because the more dramatic the improvement, the less they can use their 800-pound-gorilla of compatibility, and the more they'll have to actually compete with Linux and OS X on a level playing field.
I don't think they can. If I was a Windows user, looking at the Vista situation, I'd think "I can use Vista, and none of my apps will work. Or I can use Ubuntu, and none of my apps will work, and the OS won't suck as much."
And I don't really see how they can resolve this situation. It truly seems like a catch 22 -- every step forward is nearly guaranteed to break compatibility, and every effort to preserve compatibility is likely to prevent a step forward.
So, why aren't they dead? Well, to quote Joel Spolsky:
Microsoft has an incredible amount of cash money in the bank and is still incredibly profitable. It has a long way to fall. It could do everything wrong for a decade before it started to be in remote danger, and you never know... they could reinvent themselves as a shaved-ice company at the last minute.
He wrote this four years ago, so the recession may have changed things, but not by much.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
If you think Linux just has a PR problem, you've never tried to see things from the perspective of someone who has no geeky interest in how their computer works. These are most of the people who want to stick to Windows XP because it is safe, stable and fairly easy to use.
Most of the people who say "oh, my wife or kid has no problem using Ubuntu" are also missing the point: your wife or kid has someone at home who actually knows how to use Linux. If they need to ask you how to do something, you're right there like their own permanent, free Geek Squad agent who is always happy to not only help, but take new steps to make things better.
Once mainstream support and bug fixes to XP end, enterprise level IT groups will move to Windows 7 to continue to receive patches (*). There currently is no reason to move to Vista because XP works and is still supported. Once that support is gone, it's time to move on. The grandparent is correct.
(*) No, not all of us can just switch over to Linux, and in fact that would be a horrible idea for your average office that isn't full of geeks. For some of them it's hard enough for them to even understand their job, never mind their OS.
Speaking for myself,
(i) I am XP user (since 2003) and I don't suffer. Well, not *that* much.
(ii) The first reason I don't switch to Linux is specific applications I use under Windows (which are not free, by the way) which I can't find the equivalent on Linux.
(iii) The second reason I don't switch to Linux is potential incompatibilities with laptop (hardware). Not that I didn't try.
Clearly, I have no incentives moving to Windows 7. Even if (and when) I need new laptop, I'll try to make sure XP is supported. The only reason I would move to Windows 7 (or 8 or 9) if the current version of application XYZ I'm using is no longer supported under XP, and for whatever reason I *must* upgrade.
So, fundamentally, I care very little which OS I'm using. OS is just a platform to run some applications (I guess this statement qualifies me as non-geek, so sue me).
And in some cases, Wine has already become more usable. Take WineASIO, for instance. I get incredibly low latency using Wine/WineASIO and Windows VSTs under Linux that I never got under XP.
And they were saying the same thing post WFW, and post 95, 98SE. Corporate and educational markets are loathe to upgrade and are responsible for the largest amount of licenses. But for the record, I recently purchased a new PC for my home office with Vista Home Premium installed. I considered bricking it but decided the only way to be a LEGITIMATE critic for my clients was to actually use the OS instead of reading what others said about it. And you know what? Maybe MS has a legitimate gripe in their commercials; I enjoy using it and after turning off UAC and a few other prompts top 'save me from myself' I've become quite accustomed to it and wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to clients without compatibility issues. (Of which I found none in my case out 30-40 apps tested...) I'm an FOSS supporter and dev and I love *nix and Mac too, but I'd really like to see at least one posting here at /. that doesn't begin with the word "Microsoft" and end with the words "Evil empire".
This article really assumes that the expense of managing Citrix server farms will be significantly less than the expense of managing the XP machines.
Not that I am saying it wont be but as someone with a decent amount of experience managing servers and even with Citrix servers I'm not sure you can just say that.
Even if it's true, old habits are hard to break.
I'm not so sure about that. I work for a high-tech aerospace/electronics company, there are 3,000 people here at corporate headquarters, and we have replaced hundreds of windows workstations with linux and mac workstations over the last 18 months. All the windows boxes are running XP. The world isn't ending, we're adapting, and there is nothing the linux and mac users can't do that they couldn't before on windows except run Outlook.
In order to keep that from happening, they need new Windows-exclusive apps, not just legacy ones. Which means they need to make Windows actually an attractive platform to develop new stuff on. [But] I really wouldn't look forward to fighting the Win32 API.
Microsoft has already realized this, and that's why it started over with .NET. The various APIs exposed to the CLR, such as Windows Forms, XNA, and the like, won't immediately get ported to Mono. Mono will lag behind .NET just as Wine has lagged behind Windows.
your wife or kid has someone at home who actually knows how to use Linux
This is not the case nearly as much as it used to be. I visited my parents over Christmas, 1100km away. I've been telling my mom for years to switch to linux. Not because I think that everybody should use linux, but because she has some long-standing issues with her computer that don't affect linux. She has so far refused, simply out of fear of having to learn computers all over again.
My dad, on the other had, needed a computer for his business (an automotive shop). I told him I could put one together for x dollars, and add $110 if he wants it to run Windows. "Why would I want it to run Windows?" he asked. Honest question, but I didn't have an answer, since I'd already verified that the applications he would be using were web-based. He's been running xubuntu since Christmas and I never hear about it.
Compare that with my sister and her five young kids, 1800km away. My brother Tyler wanted to put together a budget computer for them four years ago and asked my help. We partitioned the hard disk in half, put windows on one and ubuntu on the other (because I thought that everybody should use linux). He also gave them a cheap lexmark printer that didn't work in ubuntu, so they chose to run windows. Two years later I found out that the printer is long dead and they've all taken to booting into ubuntu because their internet music and videos work better that way.
Compare that with my two brothers Ray and Rick, 500 km away. I helped them both upgrade computers in the last six months. Ray reused his windows xp from the old computer. Rick didn't have an xp disk, so I put an unactivated copy of xp on one partition and ubuntu on the other. I showed him how to dual-boot and told him he could probably find an xp crack if he wanted. He never booted into Windows.
Ray and Rick both have XBOX 360s and both have spent the last month or two trying to get media to stream. Both have had limited success. To Rick, running ubuntu I sent some links to ubuntuforums.org discussing media server options. For Ray, running windows I had to instruct him to install vnc and open ports on his router so I could get in and eventually figure out that some necessary system services weren't running. I dug up a batch file off the internet requiring an ecclectic mix of programs. I spent hours installing these and duct-taping them all together on his system and things still don't work as they should.
Rick's brother-in-law had a laptop that pooped out its hard disk. It didn't come with a windows install disk, and he was too cheap to buy one, so Rick, on my advice, bought a replacement hard disk and installed ubuntu for him. He called once to ask about printer compatibility, but that is the sum total of support given to him for this computer in the past year.
And finally, compare these with my brother Tyler again, 1800 km away, who two years ago bought a mac because he is technologically challenged and wanted something point and click. This morning he emailed me to ask if I would recommend putting Ubuntu on his client's computer, currently running Windows Malware Edition(R). He is burning the xubuntu iso as I write this.
Yeah, none of these linux installs would have happened without my initial intervention, but that's a PR thing. None of these people are computer geeks, not even close. Technically speaking, I've done less support for my linux-using family than I have for my windows-using family. Your opinion is at best 2 years out of date.
I am literally 3000 tokens away from the chaotic crossbow --Stephen
I am tired of hearing these nonsensical arguments about geeks being some kind of rudimentary humans with no social skills.
Geeks are some of the most commited people I know, help anybody that asks and go way out of their way to help people.
And so tell me people I know that are less technically inclined.
This myth of the inadequate nerd should be put to rest frankly.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
If you go to VMWare's site you can download the free VMWare player product.
Once this is installed, you can go to the VMWare market place and location Windows 7 beta 1 build 7000.
Download it. It's a large .zip file. When it's done downloading, unzip it. The VMDK is over 5GB so this will fail on a FAT32 drive.
Once you have the files extracted, launch the Windows.7.Beta.1.7000.vmx file by opening it (double click.) The password is the same as the default user account.
I have it running under Fusion on a Mac and Workstation 6.5 on XP. Like other posters state, this is what Vista should have been. I like it. For my personal use, I'm a Mac guy. But at work my impression is that I will skip Vista and go right to Windows 7 for the bulk of our many stations. I have Vista on a few PC's, but it is slow much slower than XP & has no features my business users must have. Staffware doesn't work in Vista yet, so that's another holdup.
Anyway, if you really want to know what Win 7 is like, this is the easiest way to do it.