Last year, in a blog post and a subsequent Computing column, I wrote that the Windows ecosystem is broken. Microsoft's attempts to make Windows backwards compatible with all previous versions, combined with the ballooning number of devices for which developers must write new drivers to work with Windows, is causing the operating system to become bloated and users to become frustrated.
This scenario makes it harder for Microsoft to build new Windows versions, as the OS grows ever more complex. The best evidence: Windows Vista.
Now Gartner, a tech-oriented market research firm, has come to the same conclusion. In a report that's garnered lots of attention the last few days, Analysts Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald told a Gartner-sponsored conference in Las Vegas that Windows is "collapsing".
From Computerworld:
"For Microsoft, its ecosystem and its customers, the situation is untenable," said Silver and MacDonald in their prepared presentation, titled "Windows Is Collapsing: How What Comes Next Will Improve."
Among Microsoft's problems, the pair said, is Windows' rapidly-expanding code base, which makes it virtually impossible to quickly craft a new version with meaningful changes. That was proved by Vista, they said, when Microsoft -- frustrated by lack of progress during the five-year development effort on the new operating -- hit the "reset" button and dropped back to the more stable code of Windows Server 2003 as the foundation of Vista.
"This is a large part of the reason [why] Windows Vista delivered primarily incremental improvements," they said. In turn, that became one of the reasons why businesses pushed back Vista deployment plans. "Most users do not understand the benefits of Windows Vista or do not see Vista as being better enough than Windows XP to make incurring the cost and pain of migration worthwhile."
I suggested that Microsoft needs to start over from scratch, with a brand new operating system, something Apple periodically has done. While it may sacrifice compatibility -- something that could be addressed through virtualization -- it will ultimately result in a faster, more modern, more stable operating system.
The Gartner analysts come to the same conclusion:
Users want a smaller Windows that can run on low-priced -- and low-powered -- hardware. And increasingly, users work with "OS-agnostic applications," the two analysts said in their presentation. It takes too long for Microsoft to build the next version, the company is being beaten by others in the innovation arena, and in the future -- perhaps as soon as the next three years -- it's going to have trouble competing with Web applications and small, specialized devices.
"Apple introduced its iPhone running OS X, but Microsoft requires a different product on handhelds because Windows Vista is too large, which makes application development, support and the user experience all more difficult," according to Silver and MacDonald.
"Windows as we know it must be replaced," they said in their presentation.
Backward compatibility with older applications should also be supported via virtualization. "Backward compatibility is a losing proposition for Microsoft; while it keeps people locked into Windows, it also often keeps them from upgrading," said the analysts. "[But] using built-in virtualization, compatibility modules could be layered atop Win32, or not, as needed."
I'd love to be a fly on the wall in Microsoft executive committee meetings, as Steve Ballmer et al chew over reports such as this. Do they even get it? Or will projects such as Singularity, which could be the answer, remain confined to the labs at Microsoft Research?
Does Microsoft really understand the issues that threaten it? Or is pride, and the always-fatal notion of "we've always done it this way" the real threat to the company? I'm hoping Microsoft is moving quickly to address what's becoming increasingly obvious to everyone else.
http://blogs.chron.com/techblog/archives/2008/04/gartner_figures_out_that
_the_windows_ecosyste_1.html
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