Assuming that rumors based on odd leaks are at all accurate, Microsoft may have learned that their Vistas are limited, and that certain competitive pressures cannot be ignored.
Microsoft has heard the market concerning XP's expiration. It would be hard to ignore this considering that the market has been screaming at the top of its collective lungs. Though covering their mistakes in much the same way that cats do, Microsoft has agreed to let XP live on until 2010. Microsoft claims that only XP Home will be available on "low-cost" PCs. The definition of "low-cost" is vague and gives Microsoft both wiggle room for defining which computers are allowed to ship with XP preinstalled. It also allows for some leakage of this preferred OS into the gray markets and to force Vista onto beefy machines and protect what is left of their brand image in the PC OS market (an image that Apple has successfully trashed).
The new 2010 XP expiration date is more than coincidental. Windows 7, the next Microsoft OS, is expected to be released that same year (of course, given the delays in Vista's arrival, we should assume 2010 is optimistic). Assuming that Microsoft is learning harsh lessons from their blunder (Vista), this timing allows them to extend XP availability and deter defections to Mac and Linux until a better Windows is available. After all, the switching cost to Mac or Linux is non-trivial.
One of the defects of Vista is its lack of modularity. The monolithic, out-sized kernel and the inbred stack keeps Microsoft from reacting quickly to market changes and providing real and valuable new features. Linux has a tiny kernel and since all functionality outside of the kernel is modular, you can add just as much extra capability to Linux as you need. That is why Linux is rapidly finding its way into embedded devices. Macs are based on UNIX and Apple took the same modular approach. We see Apple releasing updates to their OS much more frequently that Microsoft (major earthquakes come slightly more frequently than Microsoft operating system releases, which means there must be some mystic connections between all forms of disasters).
To understand the marketing downside of the non-modular Vista approach, consider two markets: minimal laptops and servers. Vista's only claim to fame is the new GUI (which a lot of people hate). The GUI requires a lot of overhead and most of it seems to be baked into the kernel. Thus Vista is not good for minimal laptops and forces laptop buyers to purchase a much more powerful and pricey system than they would otherwise. As for server administrators, they don't need, want, or crave a sleek and consumer focused GUI - they would gladly rip the Windows Presentation Foundation out of the box ... if they could.
Contrast the recommended systems requirements between Vista Premium and Linux. 1GHz vs. 0.4GHz processor, 40GB disc vs. 7GB, 1GB vs. 0.25GB memory.
Microsoft evidently is feeling the pressure. Rumors about Windows 7 indicate they are moving toward a more modular architecture, nicknamed MinWin. Some of the rumors indicate the kernel might consume as little as 40MB of memory, which is hefty compared to some competing operating systems, but surprisingly lithe compared to Vista and well within the specification of low-end machines.
More importantly, it allows Windows 7 to swap non-kernel components to meet the specific needs of different users (imaging swapping the entire GUI without a reboot). Recall that Linux is rapidly becoming the OS of choice for embedded systems. Little wonder considering you can make a Linux footprint incredibly tiny and bolt-in only the services and applications necessary. A Vista kernel can't compete and this forces Microsoft to offer a completely different operating system for the embedded market.
The Windows 7 kernel switch allows one Microsoft OS to be embedded, run without a GUI on servers, on low-powered micro laptops, desktops and high-end game machines ... and all on commodity hardware.
But that's not the god news for Microsoft.
Linux runs on everything. On ARM-based cell phones, x86 boxes, x64 machines, PowerPC servers, and IBM mainframes. Vista runs on WinTel chips. This dichotomy is a tribute to the Linux micro kernel approach.
Could Windows 7 run on a mainframe? On an IBM mini? On a SPARC machine? On an ARM?
Guy Smith is the chief consultant for Silicon Strategies Marketing ( http://www.SiliconStrat.com ). Guy brings a combination of technical, managerial and marketing experience to Silicon Strategies projects. Directly and as a consultant, Guy has worked with a variety of technology-producing organizations. A partial list of these technology firms include ORBiT Group (high-availability backup software), Telamon (wireless middleware), Wink Communications (interactive television), LogMeIn (remote desktop), FundNET (SaaS), Open-Xchange (groupware), VA Software (enterprise software), Virtual Iron (server virtualization), SUSE (Linux distributions and applications), BrainWave (application prototyping) and Novell.
By Guy Smith
Source : www.ezinearticles.com
