Because Microsoft's customer base would have said "Screw you, we have millions of dollars invested in custom Win32 software and we'll be running XP forever then".
This is not like the Mac world where there are a two big ISVs and a handful of smaller ones, and almost no custom/vertical applications.
Not to mention that the most important "XP-only" application isn't even third party. It is Internet Explorer 6.0.
WinFS wasn't really about tagging or searching. You can do that just fine with NTFS and an indexer. (And IMO Vista does it OK.)
The problem was that what WinFS did for the user was almost too complicated to explain. Which probably meant that it was too complicated to use properly too. Who really wants their pictures and music files stuck in some obscure database?
I'm sure you are correct. However I'm pretty sure this is the first time Microsoft has hinted about V+2 before V+1 shipped.
Actually I don't think so. "This will be in the next next version" has always been part of MS's standard whisper marketing routine. (Remember they learned from the best. IBM.)
For example, they were talking about "Cairo" (which was like V+3) long before Windows 95 showed up. It was really going to blow away NextStep!
I don't see it that way. The main benefit of adding a "MySQL" mode to Oracle is because MySQL's datatypes are non-standard and applications are likely to contain MySQL-specific DB portability bugs.
Nobody's going to buy Oracle and then start coding MySQLisms. If someone wants DB-portability, the techniques are already well known.
Making Windows only work on MS-DOS, per-processor licenses, charging extra to IBM for behavior they disliked, boycotting Intel, keeping Windows API trade secrets from Novell, WISE, the whole Netscape thing, etc. are all competitive maneuvers.
Nope. Microsoft has settled antitrust lawsuits with Digital Research, IBM, Novell, Sun, AOL/Netscape and others to the tune of billions of dollars.
This isn't really an artificial distinction. Workgroup or "LAN" servers were always treated as a distinct market from *nix even back in the old days of Novell and OS/2, and MS has focused most of their competitive efforts in that space. Even today most IT depts have different groups for the internal vs internet hosting.
Everybody's got this horrible opinion of Realplayer and the whole "buffering" thing, but I wonder how many have tried it recently.
Almost nobody, because there's hardly any Realmedia content left on the internet. (At least I haven't found a reason to install Realplayer in many years.)
I suspect the motivation is to allow reuse of advertising assets without having to recode them for every custom cable menuing system.
> Surely that's all Flash does anyhow?
Surely you aren't so ignorant to understand that Flash does more than just play video? Maybe turn off your blocker for a bit and experience the wonderful world of annoying interactive ads.
The bigger problem with J++ was that Microsoft extended the language to provide delegates (IIRC), and that feature emitted illegal JVM opcodes. This made J++ source+binary incompatible with Sun Java in a manner that couldn't be resolved without junking all the Windows extensions. Therefore they lost the lawsuit and it ultimately cost them hundreds of millions of dollars.
> Odd that your argument went from "it won't run high-end graphics software" to "Linux doesn't run MS Office" once you got called.
You're confusing my response with the other guy's.
My point is simple: Windows vs Linux on the "desktop", and Windows wins almost every time. When netbooks became regular PCs and not just internet appliances, MS owned the market.
However, I will note that netbooks are way more powerful than many systems I've run Photoshop on, so I wouldn't dismiss them purely on that account either.
So your whines about the differences between Linux software and XP are completely irrelevant to any recognizable netbook reality. The current and last generations of netbooks are too underpowered to run large-scale Linux apps with large datasets
Actually it turns out people are buying these things to run MS Office, so they certainly should be able to run "large scale Linux apps" like OpenOffice.
The issue is not irrelevant-- it's the *most* relevant point. Manufacturers thought linux "netbooks" could be used to avoid direct competition with the Windows software ecosystem, and it turned out they were almost entirely wrong.
that you won't find them at ordinary computer stores
Well, you could until the buyers started returning them in huge numbers.
So you're changing your horse because the saddle didn't fit? Hehehe call it flamebait if you want but this would never have happened if the OS was Linux.
Hehehe call it flamebait if you want but this would never have happened if the OS was Linux.
One could argue the "horse" has always been the millions of Windows applications, not the OS (which as we know has been largely cruddy). Back in the day, my company rolled out WfW because of VisualBasic and "Client-Server Integration", not visa-versa.
Oh, and it has happened with Linux - people were marooned on libc5, for example, others stuck with older kernels for various reasons.
Your comment is the one that doesn't belong on Slashdot. Is it that hard to understand that a new OS could have faster I/O and better multiprocessing support and still be "slower" because of an increased memory footprint and more graphical doodads?
To use your own example, put DOS/Windows 3.1 on a modern system. I'm sure you will find that PIO disk access and 16MB max memory support is not "completely" faster.
> Unfortunately for Java advocates, Java didn't mature fast enough
Or, unfortunately for Java advocates, Apple was making too much money selling $2500 laptops with slow-ass $25 PowerPC chips inside.;)
It had little to do with "maturity", Apple's heart obviously was with Objective-C and as soon as it looked like Mac developers would accept that, they dropped Java like a hot potato.
Sometime back in the 1980s, Apple made an insultingly low take-over bid for Sun. When Apple was in bad financial straights in the 1990s, Sun returned the favor and put an insulting low offer out for Apple.
I don't think either Sun or Apple was serious about it, however Apple really wanted IBM to buy them out.
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Because Microsoft's customer base would have said "Screw you, we have millions of dollars invested in custom Win32 software and we'll be running XP forever then".
This is not like the Mac world where there are a two big ISVs and a handful of smaller ones, and almost no custom/vertical applications.
Not to mention that the most important "XP-only" application isn't even third party. It is Internet Explorer 6.0.
WinFS wasn't really about tagging or searching. You can do that just fine with NTFS and an indexer. (And IMO Vista does it OK.)
The problem was that what WinFS did for the user was almost too complicated to explain. Which probably meant that it was too complicated to use properly too. Who really wants their pictures and music files stuck in some obscure database?
(Besides Mac users, that is)
No, my point is that the distinction also existed in Novell shops and IBM shops.
And RedHat, good point. They ship a Windows Server-compatible file+print server for a reason.
I'm sure you are correct. However I'm pretty sure this is the first time Microsoft has hinted about V+2 before V+1 shipped.
Actually I don't think so. "This will be in the next next version" has always been part of MS's standard whisper marketing routine. (Remember they learned from the best. IBM.)
For example, they were talking about "Cairo" (which was like V+3) long before Windows 95 showed up. It was really going to blow away NextStep!
I don't know what it is, but I'm really angry that Microsoft isn't making me use it!
Whew. I'm glad to hear that the future of the Linux desktop is safely in the hands of Lotus. :P
I don't see it that way. The main benefit of adding a "MySQL" mode to Oracle is because MySQL's datatypes are non-standard and applications are likely to contain MySQL-specific DB portability bugs.
Nobody's going to buy Oracle and then start coding MySQLisms. If someone wants DB-portability, the techniques are already well known.
Making Windows only work on MS-DOS, per-processor licenses, charging extra to IBM for behavior they disliked, boycotting Intel, keeping Windows API trade secrets from Novell, WISE, the whole Netscape thing, etc. are all competitive maneuvers.
Nope. Microsoft has settled antitrust lawsuits with Digital Research, IBM, Novell, Sun, AOL/Netscape and others to the tune of billions of dollars.
This isn't really an artificial distinction. Workgroup or "LAN" servers were always treated as a distinct market from *nix even back in the old days of Novell and OS/2, and MS has focused most of their competitive efforts in that space. Even today most IT depts have different groups for the internal vs internet hosting.
You have to go back more than 10 years.
In the late 80s/early 90s Apple had some corporate marketshare, but by 1999 that was long gone and Apple was in fruity iMac mode.
> MySQL is not as f***ed up as Access.
Debatable. Access never had a section in the manual entitled "Why Foreign Keys are Bad".
Everybody's got this horrible opinion of Realplayer and the whole "buffering" thing, but I wonder how many have tried it recently.
Almost nobody, because there's hardly any Realmedia content left on the internet. (At least I haven't found a reason to install Realplayer in many years.)
> Why even bother with the Adobe "Tax"
I suspect the motivation is to allow reuse of advertising assets without having to recode them for every custom cable menuing system.
> Surely that's all Flash does anyhow?
Surely you aren't so ignorant to understand that Flash does more than just play video? Maybe turn off your blocker for a bit and experience the wonderful world of annoying interactive ads.
OSX 10.0 would freeze up sometimes if you plugged in a USB mouse. Vista has its niggling problems, but nothing like that.
well, sorta-- MPG sticker ratings from the 1980s were pure bullshit. (Unless you went everywhere at a constant 42MPH.)
Also reported mileage tended to be better because the cars were wheezebags and people actually drove 55MPH.
> A reasonable test of Linux v XP on netbooks would involve the regular Linux desktop UI vs the XP UI. That isn't what happened.
You're right, because the result is assumed to be a foregone conclusion. Retail PC buyers want Windows.
Well, that could have been inexpensively fixed.
The bigger problem with J++ was that Microsoft extended the language to provide delegates (IIRC), and that feature emitted illegal JVM opcodes. This made J++ source+binary incompatible with Sun Java in a manner that couldn't be resolved without junking all the Windows extensions. Therefore they lost the lawsuit and it ultimately cost them hundreds of millions of dollars.
> Odd that your argument went from "it won't run high-end graphics software" to "Linux doesn't run MS Office" once you got called.
You're confusing my response with the other guy's.
My point is simple: Windows vs Linux on the "desktop", and Windows wins almost every time. When netbooks became regular PCs and not just internet appliances, MS owned the market.
However, I will note that netbooks are way more powerful than many systems I've run Photoshop on, so I wouldn't dismiss them purely on that account either.
I wouldn't, no way! And there is no way to completely test the new code either, as the specs never existed or at least are missing and/or outdated.
"We don't know why it works this way, but that's the way we've always done it here!"
Which is usually the reason it gets replaced, no matter how battle-hardened it is.
So your whines about the differences between Linux software and XP are completely irrelevant to any recognizable netbook reality. The current and last generations of netbooks are too underpowered to run large-scale Linux apps with large datasets
Actually it turns out people are buying these things to run MS Office, so they certainly should be able to run "large scale Linux apps" like OpenOffice.
The issue is not irrelevant-- it's the *most* relevant point. Manufacturers thought linux "netbooks" could be used to avoid direct competition with the Windows software ecosystem, and it turned out they were almost entirely wrong.
that you won't find them at ordinary computer stores
Well, you could until the buyers started returning them in huge numbers.
So you're changing your horse because the saddle didn't fit? Hehehe call it flamebait if you want but this would never have happened if the OS was Linux.
Hehehe call it flamebait if you want but this would never have happened if the OS was Linux.
One could argue the "horse" has always been the millions of Windows applications, not the OS (which as we know has been largely cruddy). Back in the day, my company rolled out WfW because of VisualBasic and "Client-Server Integration", not visa-versa.
Oh, and it has happened with Linux - people were marooned on libc5, for example, others stuck with older kernels for various reasons.
Your comment is the one that doesn't belong on Slashdot. Is it that hard to understand that a new OS could have faster I/O and better multiprocessing support and still be "slower" because of an increased memory footprint and more graphical doodads?
To use your own example, put DOS/Windows 3.1 on a modern system. I'm sure you will find that PIO disk access and 16MB max memory support is not "completely" faster.
> Unfortunately for Java advocates, Java didn't mature fast enough
Or, unfortunately for Java advocates, Apple was making too much money selling $2500 laptops with slow-ass $25 PowerPC chips inside. ;)
It had little to do with "maturity", Apple's heart obviously was with Objective-C and as soon as it looked like Mac developers would accept that, they dropped Java like a hot potato.
OOo being Lotus-ized would be a fate worse than death, I think.
Sometime back in the 1980s, Apple made an insultingly low take-over bid for Sun. When Apple was in bad financial straights in the 1990s, Sun returned the favor and put an insulting low offer out for Apple.
I don't think either Sun or Apple was serious about it, however Apple really wanted IBM to buy them out.