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Apr 09, 08 - 04:54 pm Comment from: Jim - TIV

but will it blend? that's what I wanna know!

Apr 09, 08 - 04:56 pm Comment from: Jim - TIV

"Windows should create versions for specific uses." - please dear Jobs make it so. This will insure OSX dominance in the long term.

Apr 09, 08 - 05:00 pm Comment from: theloniousMac

Long as it's snappy.

Are they suggesting versions that can work with each other or that can't work with each other? How many? How specific? In Microsoft's hands this idea could go very very wrong.

Apple has two versions of OS X on the market: Mac OS X and iPhone OS X. They seem to play together nicely.

Apr 09, 08 - 05:05 pm Comment from: Tommy Boy

Windows will never improve as long as Microsoft keeps hiring rather than firing people.

"Should create versions for specific users?" Doesn't that sound a little suspiciously like the "Vista Home Basic/Home Premium/Enterprise/Ultimate/Ad-Free/S&M;Edition" fiasco?

Also, how is this outlook "sobering" at all?
The "key redesign ideas" look exactly like what EVERYONE has been saying about Vista for months, if not XP for years.

Apr 09, 08 - 05:13 pm Comment from: dd

Notice the request for different versions of Windows comes from IT Managers. This just goes to show that today's IT Managers are nothing but "I know Windows therefore I know everything about computers" people. They're as useless in today's and tomorrow's technology world as the Atari 2600 is for serious, future gaming.

Titanic, Hindenburg and Microsoft. They will make great history companions. They have many similarities.

Apr 09, 08 - 05:23 pm Comment from: ron

"So what does Microsoft need to do? For starters, Windows should create versions for specific uses. These modules would be able to swapped out depending on the customer," Dignan reports.

Yeah Balmer, ask Heinz how to do it.

"Better security" ?!

How much do these analysts make a year to come up with such insightful recommendations?

"Apple has two versions of OS X on the market: Mac OS X and iPhone OS X."

and OSX Server?

Mac OS X comes in two flavors: Client and Server. The variations which power the iPhone/iPod aren't for sale separately, but are nevertheless variations tailored to the hardware they're on.

So the different flavors of OS X seem to fit point 1 in the list above (tailored to specific applications) - "applications" in this case I think meaning "purposes", rather than programs.

Microsoft's current confusing mix of Vista flavors is more of a marketing/antitrust-avoiding strategy, and not necessarily reflective of the purposes they're used for, or the needs of the hardware or people using it.

What's the difference between Microsoft and the Titanic.

Scroll Down











The Titanic had a band.

Apr 09, 08 - 05:32 pm Comment from: DogGone

Splitting windows into more variants will be even more confusing.

Apple have one client and one server OS for computers. That's how it should be.

M$ need to start from scratch like Apple did. Build the compatibility where it is needed.

Of course they can't do that. And that is why they are screwed.

If they can't get one version right, why would you want multiple versions?

Apr 09, 08 - 05:40 pm Comment from: UltraVisitor

It's all that legacy support going all the way back to DOS and Windows 3. Microsoft really should have done what Apple did with the transition to OS X: Make an entirely modern Operating System, with legacy support as an optional feature that can eventually be chopped off.

I really wish Windows was better. I would still use Mac, but I can't help but to feel bad for all those Windows sufferers.

Apr 09, 08 - 05:44 pm Comment from: Petey

Windows should be buried just like any other dead animal.

Microsoft needs to scrap every line of code and start from line 1.

Will never happen of course.

Windows is sold in many confusing versions. All share the same basic faults. So the answer is to sell it in even more confusing versions. Yep that should solve the problem. God forbid the day that IT managers actually run the World rather than just think they do.

Apr 09, 08 - 05:55 pm Comment from: Demon

@ Pat

And it's Captain had dignity!!!!

The really cool thing about OS X 10.0 etc., was that Apple was able to keep OS 9 for those who needed/wanted it and create a new operating system that we know today. Now OS 9 really isn't needed anymore.

Microsoft will need to do the same. In other words create a new operating system (maybe based on Unix:) and have the legacy code added on, (I thought they might have already done this with Virtual PC) for a few years until the new code is widely used. There you go Redmond, start your copy machines.

Apr 09, 08 - 06:07 pm Comment from: Mr. Peabody

If anyone really believes that the listed items are going to improve Windows OS then they're just kidding themselves. The very first thing that Windows needs to actually begin "radically" improving is to not be the default OS for the planet - really. In case anyone has lost track, this is capitalism folks, not technocracy, (well, actually it is, and that's precisely Window's problem). It's just the way that it works, and that's the primary reason, plain and simple, why Windows doesn't really work now, nor will it ever, in any variation of its current form factor.

Window's missing ingredient is competition - period. Without that nothing is really going to change for Windows users - bottom line. Oddly for Windows, it will first have to become much less ubiquitous before it can really even improve - much less "radically" change. Hidden in the title of this MDN post is the actual key to improving Windows.

I still dream of living in a world where three or more OSes actually compete, and with a tipable market share between the three of them - You can bet all of our collective behind's that we'd see technological innovation unlike anything the human race has here-to-fore been accustomed to. But that's just a dream.

Apr 09, 08 - 06:11 pm Comment from: Jubei

Laughable. So instead of 7 version, lets make 24!! ahahahaha

If history is any judge, Microsoft will do exactly what these guys want. Microsoft's history is to copy whatever Apple did last, so ...

Windows 7 will be a whole new modular OS built on top of an open source BSD kernel. This will help them to work better with all the Open Source guys they have to cosy up to in the near future, and (finally) give them cred in the security arena.

Then they only have to scrap DirectX and replace it with OpenGL and you have something that might actually work.

Apr 09, 08 - 06:15 pm Comment from: Thorin

@ Tommy Boy

"Windows will never improve as long as Microsoft keeps hiring rather than firing people."

Yes!!

@Mr. OS X
@Gabriel

Oops. You're right of course. Mac OS X and OS X Server, which run on the big hardware, and the other OS X (does it have an official name) which runs on the small hardware. Desktop/laptop—same version. 32bit/64bit—same version. The big hardware versions and the small hardware version have so much in common they mesh very nicely. Is this what Silver and MacDonald mean? Windows already has more versions than this to much less effect.

Apr 09, 08 - 06:19 pm Comment from: Jubei

Lets make a list guys/gals.

Windows Toddler Edition

Windows Terrible Twos Edition

Windows Pre-Teen Edition

Windows IT iDiots Editioons....

Apr 09, 08 - 06:22 pm Comment from: alansky

I can't help but to feel bad for all those Windows sufferers. —UltraVisitor

That's very charitable of you (seriously). As far as I'm concerned, people who are forced to use Windows at their jobs have a good excuse. Everybody else is basically getting what they deserve for being ignorant consumers. It's not like there's an out-and-out conspiracy to conceal the fact that the Macintosh is a better computer.

Oh dd! You slay me!

I still use Photoshop running on OS 9 classic because I didn't want to cut off an arm and a leg to pay Adobe again for the OS X version. Really, OS 9 had issues, but was lightning fast considering the hardware that it was running on.

Apr 09, 08 - 06:38 pm Comment from: Ampar

"What's the difference between Microsoft and the Titanic?

The Titanic had a band."


And towels. But they both had unstable ballast that destroyed chairs.

Apr 09, 08 - 06:45 pm Comment from: Zune Tang®

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. There's nothing wrong with Windows. In fact it's magnificent and only getting better. And if by "collapsing under its own weight" you morons mean "maturing" then you might have something.

Microsoft has ushered in so many useful and welcome innovations through Windows in the past 20 years we should all be grateful—most of all Apple. Where do you MAC lemmings think the copycats in Cupertino get their ideas? Let Apple seal their doom with Zen concepts like 'adding by subtracting'. As far as Windows goes I really think Microsoft should continue to 'add by adding'.

Your potential. Our passion.™

Yes. True. I feel the same way.
But we're in the 21st century now and progress is progress.

I just bought Ps CS3 and I just want you to know that I never see the progress bar when I apply a filter.
It is much more expensive, but so is a new car.

As for Micros**t, they fail because they just have no taste. And I mean that not in a small way, but in a big way.

...And some people have no sense.

It's all that legacy support going all the way back to DOS and Windows 3. Microsoft really should have done what Apple did with the transition to OS X: Make an entirely modern Operating System, with legacy support as an optional feature that can eventually be chopped off.

Remember, since the PC was introduced, Apple has made two major legacy breaks (Apple II to Mac, Classic to OS X) and two lesser but OS-significant breaks (68K to PowerPC, PPC to Intel).

MS in that same timeframe has made NONE. Windows today is nothing more than 20+ years of barnacles on a creaky DOS hull.

Also, Blue Dream, consider smart filters, smart objects, layer comps, super, super tight integration with the other apps . . . it's worth upgrading, and unless I'm mistaken, all you need to get upgrade pricing is any version of Photoshop (at least that used to be the policy). I don't know what you do, but it might make your life a lot easier. Loathe as I am to shill for Adobe nothing else really compares.

no one needs Windows 7. and the industry knows it. The action is in software services and mobile devices. Microsoft like IBM, is irrelevant.

I had a choice.

Between insecure (Windows) and secure (OSX).

Between cobbled together (Windows) and well integrated (OSX).

Between ugliness (Windows) and beauty (OSX).

Between good enough (Windows) and excellence (OSX).

Between going with the crowd (Windows) my own path (OSX).

Between pain (Windows) and pleasure (OSX).

Between clumsiness (Windows) and grace (OSX).

Between an insidious destructive monopoly (Micros**t) and a company on top of its game (Apple).

Instead of letting the herd mentality dictate my buying decision I let common sense do the talking. I run my own business.
Without Micros**t.

That pathetic sod who names himself after a bad iPod copy is a great example of how people think once they have ceded their own individuality to a monolithic empire. Poor bastard.

Remember the day when IT guys would smugly announce their occupation to strangers and people would secretly think "wow, he's smart".....

Things have changed.

Micros**t.
No Passion. No Potential.

@Zune Tang®
You're as goofy as a Hammerhead shark. Your eyeballs are pointed in two different directions and you don't even know it. They keep trying to improve this pigs ear of a program (Microsoft) and it is still a pigs ear. Your registered name should be Hot Brown Butt Mud for the crap you sling around here.

There's a saying, "Sleep in the bed you made".

Sweet dreams, MS.

Please lay off Zuney! He's a friendly neighborhood troll.

I guess MS could only fool people for so long, eh? I'm glad to see their down fall in my lifetime-think of the possibilities if the playing field were truly even again. Someday in retrospect, the time they spent at the top will seem like a blip.

Windows is so bloated and carries so much legacy code that the "great idea" from Gartner is to have multiple versions of Windows so users could pick only the modules they want. This flies in the face of Microsoft's plan, which is to tie everything to the OS so that users don't have a choice in which app to use.

Of course, this strategy also presumes that users could easily differentiate between versions of Windows. Sure didn't happen with Vista.

Microsoft wouldn't need multiple versions of Windows if it would just cut off legacy code and accept that some corporations may not upgrade right away due to old legacy apps. Those corporations may just get inspired to in turn update their 15 year old apps and move into the 21st Century, which would actually push them along to new versions of Windows.

Thank goodness Microsoft is too stupid (and Ballmer is too focused on immediate sales) to figure that out.

Apr 09, 08 - 07:54 pm Comment from: LateRegistrant

"What's the difference between Microsoft and the Titanic?"

With Microsoft the damage is being inflicted from the inside.

What's laughably ironic is if the article is to be believed, and the IT managers in the room are serious, M$ is already giving them what they want with Vista and yet they still complain, even though most of them aren't even using it or haven't even tried it.

For example, these IT managers ostensibly want to do away with Windows venerable legacy compatibility all the way back to 16-bit applications. Great idea. Would make everyone's life easier, including M$. Well, Vista does just that...and so they've not adopted it because they'd have to recode all those thousands of custom and legacy applications that don't have correct privilege elevation rights. Hell, I work at a company where they have a 12-year old database system running on 11-year old hardware and management refuses to invest in software made this decade. Replicate that problem millions of times in corporate America and the cries for abandoning legacy support fall flat. This is one area where Apple really, really shines, though admittedly, they had less to lose by breaking off pre-OSX applications and hardware vis a vis M$.

Vista also breaks with an entirely new and eminently more secure driver model (drivers completely separated from the kernel now), and yet IT managers complain that legacy hardware (printers, scanners, cameras, old servers, et al) don't work on Vista because there are no drivers for old gear that comply with the new model. IT managers want it both ways and it's just not going to happen, especially since Windows 7 based on the MinWin kernel is just continued refinement of Vista.

About the only thing they said that makes sense is that M$ really needs to fix its licensing model...it's just crazy (and SA can be sometimes punitive), though not the worst.

"Then they only have to scrap DirectX and replace it with OpenGL and you have something that might actually work."

Um, dude, DirectX is far, far more capable and advanced than OpenGL. It's not even close.

Apr 09, 08 - 08:03 pm Comment from: ken1w

Windows 7 is basically going to be Windows XP SP3. Based on continued sales of Windows XP, that's what Microsoft customers want. 7-year-old technology, except by then, it will be 10-year-old technology.

Apr 09, 08 - 08:14 pm Comment from: Ampar

In other news, tonight on American Idol: Idol Gives Back, the dozen or so onstage volunteers are all using MacBook Pros that are easily visible in every camera shot. One of the sponsors on the giant graphics board is  iTunes. Nice. You may hate the show but this charity event is an admirable effort with some excellent Mac exposure.

Apr 09, 08 - 08:19 pm Comment from: Big Al

Zune Tang is a Mac nut making fun of Windows apologists.

That most of you don't recognize his satire is a testament to the massive switch to Mac that is happening out there making so many newly created MDN fans.

To all of you newcomers - making fun of Windows fanbois by rabidly going through all of Microsoft's talking points while making every cliched mistake about 'MACs' is really quite funny.

Having a rabid Windows Fanboi agree with Zune Tang is just a bonus.

Apr 09, 08 - 08:22 pm Comment from: The Other Steve

"Windows should also be more manageable."

Not to mention silky smooth and full bodied.

"and OSX Server?"

No, that's the same operating system. OS X Server is basically a package of system administration tools.

-jcr