Posted on 04/10/2005 6:06:02 AM PDT by infocats
TEN years ago, Microsoft unveiled Windows 95 in a way that suggested that the product's arrival was no less momentous than when humans stood upright for the first time. The company spent about $200 million introducing the operating system. That paid for festivities on the Microsoft campus (with Jay Leno as M.C.), rights to use the Rolling Stones song "Start Me Up" in a global advertising campaign and permission to bathe the Empire State Building at night with the Windows logo. It also loaded The Times of London with Windows 95 advertising that day, making the newspaper a one-day freebie, a first in its 307 years.
What was remarkable about the Windows 95 introduction was the acquiescence of customers, who participated so willingly in the spectacle. Microsoft arranged for retail outlets to open at midnight on the day the system would first be available, a stunt that proved as irresistible as klieg lights at a Hollywood premiere. One chain counted some 50,000 people lined up at its stores across the country.
These people were chasing an operating system, of all things - plumbing that serves a necessary function, to be sure, but of no more intrinsic interest than the pipes that snake below the floorboards of a house. In 1995, however, Microsoft managed to make the mundane appear life-changing. The Seattle Times quoted one happy midnight customer, standing with his wife, who predicted that "this is going to enhance our marriage."
Windows XP, introduced in 2001, could not match Windows 95's remarkable debut. We can hope that XP's successor, which has the code name "Longhorn" and is scheduled for release next year, will appear quietly, bringing us closer to the day when users need know no more about a PC's operating system than they do of the embedded software in a cellphone.
Longhorn's gestation has already extended much longer than originally planned. Rumors of its existence surfaced in 2001, when the system was said to have been chosen as a quick "intermediate" update of XP. Time passed, and the news media were permitted a sneak preview. But completion of even this, the interim release, came no closer. Determined to get it out the door by 2006, Microsoft decided in 2004 to remove a new file system for organizing data on the hard drive, what the company had earlier promoted as the heart of the new system. If and when this feature ever appears, it is unlikely to enhance anyone's marriage.
Regretful that it had announced an important feature that it subsequently had to remove, the company decided to remain quiet about other aspects for as long as possible. Microsoft has given software developers beta versions of two new components, for graphics and Web services, but these will be available for Windows XP customers, too. The company has yet to say what exactly will be a Longhorn-only improvement.
Microsoft's reticence cannot last much longer. In two weeks, it will be host for a conference for hardware vendors, setting down the minimum specifications that must be met in order to run Longhorn. You may be eager to know whether that PC on your desk will meet the specs. If your PC does not, it's unlikely that you will replace it just to be able to run the latest version of Windows. Michael Cherry, a senior analyst at Directions on Microsoft, a consulting firm based in Kirkland, Wash., observes that many PC users now treat their computers like TV sets.
"Unless the TV doesn't turn on," he says, "they won't replace them."
Mr. Cherry expressed skepticism about the appeal of enhanced graphics for him and others who spend most of their time using a word processor, an e-mail program and a browser. "How are 3-D graphics really going to change my life?" he wondered.
Another analyst, Rob Enderle, president of the Enderle Group, greets the system with more enthusiasm, predicting that Longhorn will provide "vast improvements in security." We can cheer this happy prospect, but at the same time we must ignore the snide laughs of Macintosh users who have yet to encounter a virus. No matter how solid and secure Longhorn's code appears, Microsoft will need a lot of independent voices providing verification and reassurance.
The professional caretakers of corporate PC's seem rather leery of Microsoft's promises these days, spurning the most recent package of security improvements and bug fixes offered for Windows XP. Last week, AssetMetrix Research Labs, a research firm based in Ottawa, released the results of a survey of 251 North American companies, measuring the adoption of Windows XP. Only 7 percent of companies had actively embraced the latest improvements, Service Pack 2, released six months ago. The improvements, it turns out, introduce software-compatibility problems. These can be overcome with tinkering but not without aggravation and additional cost for fixes that should not have been necessary in the first place.
Compatibility issues will loom larger in the future. Longhorn is unlikely to co-exist peaceably with existing software that sits atop the operating system. Mr. Enderle said that gaining enhanced security necessitates making a break with the complementary software of the past, which means "compatibility is going to suffer."
Windows XP may prove to be a tenacious paterfamilias, unwilling to move aside for the next generation. Security holes notwithstanding, it is the most stable version of Windows to date. That very stability will make it difficult for the company to market Longhorn as a release more important than XP itself, a prediction that Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman, made in 2003.
Predictions do not fare well when the computing world moves faster than the lumbering mass of Microsoft's Windows division. Linux constitutes an alternative model, employing fleet feet and frequent releases.
Mark Lucovsky, a software engineer, recently described in his blog the process of writing code for a project like Longhorn and the long wait before it reaches a customer's PC. First, a bug fix or added feature is deposited in a source code control system, where it may sit for years. Eventually it is transferred into a product release and pressed into CD's. Months pass, even in the final stage, from release to manufacturing to arrival at the customer's receiving department. Slow.
By contrast, engineers who work on improvements for a newer form of operating system, the software that powers Web sites, can roll out work almost instantaneously. Mr. Lucovsky recounts how a friend at Amazon discovered a performance issue, found a fix, tested it and had it in place, all in a day. "Not a single customer had to download a bag of bits, answer any silly questions, prove that they are not software thieves, reboot their computers, etc.," he wrote. "The software was shipped to them, and they didn't have to lift a finger."
MR. LUCOVSKY'S remarks are of interest because he knows a thing or two about developing operating systems. He was a senior architect of Windows NT, was the chief keeper of the keys for the source code and was named by Microsoft in 2000 as one among its inaugural batch of distinguished engineers. Recently, after 16 years at Microsoft, however, he said he decided that he had been wrong in thinking that Microsoft knew best "how to ship software."
It was other companies, the ones who understood the potential of the Internet and software-as-a-service, that were best able to deliver benefits to customers "efficiently and quickly," he said. He resigned from Microsoft and has joined one of those other companies: Google.
Randall Stross is a historian and author based in Silicon Valley. E-mail: ddomain@nytimes.com.
I'm with you.
Prove it... Post screen shots of this benchmark from each machine... PC Mark 2002
Not sure where you've been; XP is a vast improvement over any version of 98.
But what matters is what works for you.
Dan
I live in a cave and enjoy it;)
xp has too many holes in it for me. It ALWAYS has a patch that needs to be installed for one thing or another and the hacker scum make it even worse by exploiting the holes.
I don't want an OS that has to be upgraded every week or 2, I want to USE my computers not repair them.
I run 98SE/Mozilla/SpyBot/AdWare/SpywareBlaster with cookie approval requested and NEVER have any problems.
Why did you do that ?
go away...I'm happy with Windows 2000....
LOL
Mine automatically updates, and I don't spend two minutes "repairing" it, ever.
I run 98SE/Mozilla/SpyBot/AdWare/SpywareBlaster with cookie approval requested and NEVER have any problems.
Sounds like you spend a lot more time and energy on freebie gadgets and fixes than I do.
Nope, I spend time using my computer. Install and forget it.
~nods and smiles~
This can serve as a summary of every Microsoft OS I have ever had to deal with. (Except perhaps DOS.)
Once you go Mac, you never go back. I am forced to deal with PCs at work, and I just marvel at the time and money spent on the "tinkering and aggravation" needed to keep them up and running.
My G4 running OSX just works every time without exception.
apple kept the unix platform.
gates abandoned it.
this cost world consumers of ms billions of dollars.
I, for whom technology is magic, just bought a router and created a wireless network among 4 computers (one of which is a Jornada 720 Handheld)... 3 XPs... an operating system that I have found very VERY stable (compared to the 95, 98 and ME that I had in the past).
I'm still a DOS fan... (my favorite WP program is a little shareware gem called VDE) and I'm so pleased that Mr. Gates has kept so-called legacy programs possible.
If this new Longhorn Operating system can increase security, I'll probably buy it. XP is a fine product, certainly a great improvement on the previous systems, all of which except for an updated Windows 98 which had gotten quite stable, often made me want to go back in time. Millenium was a nightmare!!
I once tried messing with Linux, but I kept getting geeky messages.
Perhaps now it's more user friendly, but last time I tried, I wanted to get a gun, go to the zoo and shoot a penguin. No doubt it is wonderful for Geeks, but I often have the feeling that Geeks like it simply to be able to show how Geeky they are.
So far, with XP, plug and play has worked fine, allowing me to spend time learning the programs, instead of messing with the inner workings.
Conclusion? If a non technological Italian girl like me can have her XP computer programs available (through terminal client server) on her Jornada 720 handheld screen in a matter of minutes... Signor Gates must be doing something right.
If I could express a wish... I'd ask him to ALSO make a simplified, down-sized macro language available for WORD... simple - say - as it used to be in word for Dos. Now, I'm sure it's magnificent and can even be programmed to make you espresso, but it's too complicated!!
So far, I would be ungrateful to complain about my XP.
You and me both. I refuse. I have taken my own measures to secure my PCs and will put them up against anything MS can try to foist off on me.
I hear noise that MS says that XP users will be getting SP2 by year end whether they like it or not. Let 'em try. They're not getting into my PC. No way.
I will say though, that I did a full upgrade on both of my networked PCs from ME to XP and it is like night and day. Compared to ME...XP rocks. Hell, just getting all my filesystems to NTFS was a huge help.
At the time, I was one of those geeks who loaded it the very first day. I wasn't one of those imbeciles who lined up at the store at midnight but I did take the day off from work and went to the store that morning. I spent the rest of that day upgrading my two home computers and learning all the new tricks.
I never liked the clunky Win 3.1 and I was so happy to be done with that. Windows '95 was awesome by comparison. My computers suddenly looked and felt like Macs. No other upgrade since provided such a drastic overnight change.
Oh yeah, and I remember being blown away by the Weezer video that was contained as an "extra" on the Win '95 CD. Good memories. Seems like so long ago now...
BTW, I am VERY happy with XP. Most stable OS so far.
Same here, except 4 PCs and 2 laptops, setting up their wireless network was easy with XP/SP2. Even had Linux on one PC for a while (not anymore - pain in the butt). I admire your DOS abilities. I loved it but have been away from it so long, I forget how to use it.
The question really is whether windows is worth its' cost! And once you get into price/performance apple loses it's shine and Linux looks better.
Windows 95 is too primitive today. Windows 98 is nice if you have an old PC and like blue screens. Windows XP is pretty powerful and Windows X64 even more so.
Windows Longhorn isn't even out publicly in beta form yet so who know what it will do when eventually released except try to stop you from playing those nasty MP3s and bootleg videos.
I use a Mac at home and a PC at work for video editing. I've finally settled into Windows XP and gotten all of my editing software comfortable with it, and I am going to be rather skittish about updating to Longhorn immediately. I have finally learned all of the little tricks and figured out just how to hold my mouth when I work to keep Premiere and After Effects from crashing, so I'm standing pat for a while.
Meanwhile, Tiger is due out in May, and H.264 with it!
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