The word on the Internet is that Microsoft is rushing to get Windows 7 out the door in an effort to offset the negativity surrounding Vista.  No matter what Microsoft does with Windows 7, I'm not sure it's going to matter. 

Assume for a minute that Vista was a great operating system.  Would it do anything significantly better than XP does?  Did XP do anything significantly better than Windows 2000?  Windows 98? 

How about creating software that lets me do new things?  How about creating software that lets me do my old tasks better and faster?  This is what Microsoft promises with each new version of Windows, but they can't deliver.

New versions of Windows aren't improvements, they're just different.  You can't hold on to market share like that. That's true even when your market share is well above 90%, as Windows' is currently.

XP Service Pack 2 was released shortly before the Fall of 2004.  It included Advanced Security Technologies according to Microsoft.  If you were a business waiting to upgrade to XP, this is what you were waiting for. 

Fast forward to 2007/2008 those XP computers are now ready to be replaced.  That means new computers running the new operating system called Vista. Unfortunately, the buzz on Vista is less than spectacular.  End users aren't upgrading.  Some companies aren't updating their older software and drivers to work with Vista.  That means software and hardware incompatibility issues for anyone who does take the bold step of upgrading.

Meanwhile, there's Linux.  Yes, it's incompatible with some of your Windows software.  But so is Vista.  Unlike Vista, Linux is compatible with most older hardware.  Linux is leaner than Vista which means it's able to get more performance out of that older hardware.

The main problem with Linux adoption is not a lack of user friendliness or usability.  The problem is that many early adopters are tech people coming from a Windows background.  While tech people like the idea of Linux and want to give it a try, they also get easily frustrated when something they want to do isn't immediately obvious.  The tech user then complains that Linux isn't ready for primetime, or it needs to be easier to install software in Linux, or Linux wouldn't run on my hardware, or Linux requires use of the command line, etc.

None of the above complaints are true, but they are common among people who don't understand how to use Linux.  When average computer users see tech people make such statements they immediately think, "Well, if he couldn't make it work I doubt I'll be able to."  And they stay away from Linux.

That's right.  I said NEVER.

I just don't think computer users as a group will ever get together and switch to Linux.  It's more of a social dynamic thing than a reflection on Linux as a viable platform.  For example, Google wasn't always the most popular search engine.  But there was no "year of Google" when everyone stopped using Alta Vista, Yahoo, and Excite and started "googling." 

The change to Google was gradual.  And so it will be with Linux. 

What's happening now is that average consumers are using Linux in devices like phones and PDAs and set-top boxes.  Some people are moving to Linux on the desktop, but they're mostly the techies and those who have techie friends.  Businesses are moving to Linux on the server.

Last week my parents asked me to install Linux on both of their new Vista laptops. When they first got the laptops we all noticed that they were slower than they should be. (Both the laptops had dual core Intel CPUs (T7300 and T5250). Each laptop had 2 gigs of RAM.) When the laptops were new I offered to put Linux on them, but my parents refused. After a few months of using Vista they had changed their minds. They were sick of the long boot times, the slowness, and the general irritation that came with Vista.

A big part of the reason they switched is that I had given up on Windows 3 years ago. Here's how that works...

Are techies always the biggest whiners when things don't go exactly their way?

"Microsoft has extended its cheap software for education plan, aimed at strangling open source in its crib, to Russia."
http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=1655

Just like the Mandriva/Nigeria deal mentioned here and here, it's hard for me to get worked up about this.

I tend to think this is a good thing.  First, it proves that open source is at least equivalent in features and functionality.  (MS wouldn't drop the price if the open source threat wasn't real.)  Second, it's forcing MS to compete on price (at least in some markets) with free software.  

These developments show us the natural next step in the battle between software ideologies.  What happens when large numbers of businesses also threaten to go open source?  

Forget viruses, worms, and rootkits.  If hackers really wanted to damage businesses and Microsoft it looks like the WGA server is the single point of failure.

http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9032798

Once a hacker takes down the WGA server all he has to do is wait until the millions of Windows machines phone home.  The (de)activation controls built into Windows do the rest. 

Couple that with the security and reliability problems associated with Windows servers and this could get nasty. 

The moral of the story:  If you must use Windows, make sure you have a fully functional backup machine running a non-Windows OS.

I read an article a few days ago titiled Apple Kicks Microsoft Where It Hurts.  Articles like this seem somewhat popular among the Apple community.  Usually, it means Apple is implementing a feature in their OS that Windows has had for years.  What I didn't expect was that the article would be about a new spreadsheet application called Numbers.

Yep, Apple is creating their own spreadsheet application and bundling it into a standard office suite called iWork which will sell for $79.  I'm not impressed.  I'd love to see Microsoft kicked a little, but this seems like the wrong way to do it.  Google and other companies are doing the same thing with online office suites that you can access from anywhere with any computer using just a web browser.  OpenOffice has a free office suite that runs on any major computing platform, including the Mac.

A few days ago I found this blog entry and I realized something interesting about the three main computer industry groups in existence today:  Apple, Microsoft, and Linux.

Apple creates computers as if they're works of art.  They're nice to look at with lots of style and they cost much more than any product made out of similar materials/parts.  This model is what worked, somewhat, for the Mac in the past.  This seems to be the personal vision of Steve Jobs.  Apple doesn't think they're creating consumer electronics.  They think they're creating art that also happens to be consumer electronics.

Microsoft creates software as if it was physical object.  They don't just create a new version of Office every few years.  They create a new version of Works, Office Standard, Office Professional, Office Home & Student.  They do the same with Windows: XP Pro, XP Home, XP Media Center, Vista Business, Ultimate, Home Premium, Home Basic...  Every year Honda makes a new set of cars, Accord, Civic, CR-V...  (You get it.)

Virtual is the way to go. No OS can to be everything to everyone. When I switched from DOS and Win3.11 to Windows 95 there were tradeoffs, but overall Windows 95 was better, but a bit slower. It helped a lot that I could still run my essential DOS software (mainly WP5.1) in a command prompt window. The situation is the same today. Overall, Linux is better but there are still some things people need to use in Windows.

I love that I can backup virtual drives like regular files. I have a backup virtual drive on my network share (my work desktop) and a copy that I play with on my laptop. Since VMWare lets me grow the drives as needed and/or stores the drive data as files no larger than 2 gig I can copy them to DVDs or to my external hard drive easily. If the computer running the virtual drive ever crashes I can use any other computer and free VMWare software to run the drive from one of my backups. It's as simple as copy and paste to another host computer.  I can delete all traces of my VM from the host computer when I'm done.