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With all the setbacks, it will be more than five years between Windows XP and Windows Vista. And for even that delivery schedule, Microsoft had to scale back many of the major advances that were planned for the new operating system.
Although Windows has largely maintained its dominant share of the operating system market, the software maker's inability to regularly update the product poses a growing risk to its cash cow.
"Microsoft is going to be feeling more pressure, especially as applications get to be more OS-agnostic," or not tied to a particular operating system, Gartner analyst Michael Silver said.
Microsoft has long spoken out about its need to be constantly innovating, with executives pointing to the fate that bedeviled IBM in the 1970s and 1980s, when it became seen as a lumbering giant in a field of nimbler and more agile competitors.
"I've been around IBM, and I saw how IBM overdid it," Steve Ballmer said in a 2003 interview with The Seattle Times. In that interview, the Microsoft CEO described the opportunities that IBM's slowed pace created for Microsoft when the PC came around, and talked about Microsoft's need to avoid that fate. "Maybe we will, maybe we won't--but we have strategy control, we have technology control, we've got financial control," he said.
Of course, recognizing the dangers and being able to escape the same fate are two different things.
One of the key problems is that the two halves of creating a new OS--programming and testing--are both getting longer to accomplish. On the development side, Microsoft has spent years re-architecting its software development practices in order to boost security, and such rigor also takes time. On top of that, the time spent testing new code has increased, although automated tools have helped some. Chairman Bill Gates noted on Tuesday that as many as half of the worker-hours put into Vista have gone into testing.
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Microsoft also faces the challenge of trying to support all of the hundreds of millions of Windows machines out there. The company frequently takes pride in showing off how its latest and greatest operating system can run even the oldest applications.
"We are very backwards-compatible people," Gates said at an Office developer conference this week.
Apple Computer, which has taken a very different approach, has not been afraid to cut support for older Mac machines and software in its efforts to modernize its operating system. The results are a narrower security footprint and a much smaller number of types of systems against which to test.
Michael Cherry, a Directions on Microsoft analyst, said that although Microsoft is in a somewhat different situation, it can take lessons from Apple. The Mac seller took a one-time hit when it made major architectural changes with OS X and since then has focused on more modest, but noticeable, feature enhancements.
"There haven't been huge, massive changes," Cherry said. "But people have looked at them and said, 'Nice job. Let's buy it.'"
Cherry said that Microsoft shouldn't need to make significant changes to most of the underlying architecture of Windows at this point--only occasional upgrades should be needed, to add things such as new networking protocols. "Everything else should be about putting fancy sinks on top of the plumbing," Cherry said.
With Vista, Microsoft originally hoped to make major changes to the underlying code, adding in a new file storage mechanism called WinFS, along with all-new graphics and communications methods. It eventually had to pull out WinFS entirely and scale back several other architectural changes in order to make the project more manageable.
In the future, Microsoft may well look to focus more energy in interim releases on updating some of the companion programs that are part of Windows, as opposed to the core operating system code. Gates talked on Monday of the need, for example, to update Internet Explorer more often.
But Cherry said it's more than just a different approach that is needed.
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So what does MS do? They create a compelling reason to upgrade by stopping support and security updates for their older versions.
Hardware manufacturers love Microsoft too, because when these companies all have to upgrade to the new Windows, they will have to upgrade all their hardware too -- this will especially be true of Vista.
Downloadable roll-ups of for various subsystems and components (PTFs).
Monthly cumulative service packs with all maintenance to date, downloadable or shipped by subscription, or orderable from MS support web site for nominal cost (shipping/handling).
Quarterly refresh install disks for the OS (WinXP/Win2K) and/or applications (Office) containing preinstalled service packs. Could be used for a fresh reinstall or just a update-reinstall to bring OS or Apps up to date.
IBM did it in the 70's and 80's and it works quite well when implemented correctly.
Pathetic.
"Apple Computer, which has taken a very different approach, has not been afraid to cut support for older Mac machines and software in its efforts to modernize its operating system. The results are a narrower security footprint and a much smaller number of types of systems against which to test."
So big deal when it comes to Apple, anyone can completely cut off the earlier versions and come out with new ones, Apple support has people on the chopping block all the time, where windows supports everything back
I think a better approach for Microsoft would be to rethink what they consider to be truly part of the operating system, and realize that non-critical things like Mediaplayer and Internet Explorer should be decoupled and released (and maybe sold) independently, like in a Plus Pack. Also, backwards compatability for apps and hardware could be achieved by offering those who truly need it a VMWARE type product. Customers who don't need support for stuff more than 3 years old should not be penalized in a misguided attempt to support 10 year old stuff . A smaller, lighter OS that just runs current apps supremely well would benefit everyone. It would be available sooner, run better, and cost less (less QA expenses).
full versions of both Windows NT 3.5 and Windows 95. It was bit
of challenge to get everything working, especially with no time
free. But the effect was overall good. Both OSs were stable, and
I've not seen the Blue Screen of Death once. No viruses, no
malware. Nothing. True, I can't run the newest version of Word,
but the newest version of Word is like the newest version of
Madden: Little change in overall product.
My games work fine, depending if it's DOS or Windows. Windows
games get the 95 install, DOS games go straight to the DOS
version that NT 3.5 installs. Internet works fine, and a recent
version of Mozilla handles 95 well, while I just use IE 5.5 for 3.5.
I'm really wondering what the hell XP was made for? Lots of
users I know still use 98 or 95 and seem to have no complaints.
Ever since I bought XP in 2001, if memory serves me right, I've
been constantly hitting the Windows Update option. Week after
week I have to update this OS, and sometimes the updates ruin a
perfectly working OS by causing script errors, Visual .NET
processes to malfunction, closing some holes while letting
others open up, etc., etc.
I will XP Pro props for one thing, my Mac home servers never
had a better companion to store and back-up data on. XP is very
good for file storage in NTFS format. Since I don't web surf on
these machines anymore, large amounts of MP3s and the like
get stored on these things, including huge amounts of graphic
files, programming routines, and video/sound.
Every OS has it's pros or cons. Since I don't play my 200+ PC
games anymore, I don't need to worry about that aspect, ergo,
go use a Mac to do finances, my studies, research, etc. I usually
use the XP machines' screens to run fish screen savers, which I
find very relaxing.
I'm hoping Vista does more than I'm expecting, like Mac OS X
Jaguar and up has. Or maybe I'll just stick to XP.
Personally, I think it is this backwards compatibility thing that not only slows innovation in the OS it also keeps innovation out of the hardware. I think this is why Intel hasn't had a major technology break through and also why we still have computers that us DMA and IRQ. We should be well past that. It also explains why most of the "progress" in computer technology is well nearly faked. Intel and AMD keep saying they are coming out with faster processors and the like, but are they really? I just don't see the speed difference betwee my old P4 2.8 and the fastest processor/motherboard than either of these companies have. It just isn't there.
If people don't want to upgrade to the lastest and greatest in OSes and hardware. That is fine, but the software and hardware companies need to stop designing for them and design for those that do. Otherwise innovation isn't going any further.
Robert
different versions is tremendous. I work in an envirorment with
4000 PCs.We have frozen at W2K as XP breaks so many programs.
We had to bite the bullet when we upgraded from NT to W2K and
had to retender for some replacement applications to replace the
ones that broke. Since then we have discovered Linux and found it
to be vastly more reliable and better support for different hardware
even if still quirky with messy copies of messy windows like KDE.
- RE
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by colllar
May 18, 2006 7:05 AM PDT
- I actually suppose WinFS to be a really interesting filesystem. I've searched over to get more on it and came upon this source http://www.ntfs.com/ If you are interested you might wish to give it a glance also.
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