Where do you see Microsoft going in the next few years

[crazyeightballa]

i personally agree with furtivefelon, i think it will be a slow change but im sure that MS will decline in popularity...i may be totally wrong here but i think alot of ppl use MS because its familiar to them and its easy to use and dont use things like Linux because they dont know how or dont know anything about it, but now with the new generations becoming much more computer literate at younger ages, ppl will realize that MS isnt very good and slowly other OS's will pop up because of a new opening in the market, more companies will have opportunities to create OS's and become successful

slowly but eventually when ppl start going to other OS's, there will be more prgms for them and ppl wont be so afraid of going to something like Linux because the same amount of software will be available...

just my 2 cents

 

[TheHeadFL]

First of all, let me say that I am a Windows and a Linux user. I also use them both to write code and develop apps and such. I also study both of them in the course of my computer science work.

Does anybody in this thread want to volunteer any substantive evidence for why Microsoft's products supposedly "suck"? What makes you think Linux is somehow above Windows in terms of reliability?

The fact of the matter is, more than half of you probably have hardware in your PCs that is not on the Hardware Compatibility List. Which, out of the box, eclipses almost any Linux distribution by far (that I am aware of). So, most of you are running 3rd party code already at the OS level. If nVidia or ATI write a buggy driver, you'll be apt to blame it on Windows. With supporting tens of thousands of pieces of hardware comes problems. Linux doesn't support a small fraction of this even.

Even worse, many of you probably have plenty of poorly written 3rd party applications spread all over your drives like the tentacles of an octopus. When one of these applications hard crashes because the writer of the application was lazy and didn't feel like handling an exception or checking a buffer, you're probably going to blame Windows too.

How different do you really think Windows is at the kernel level than Linux? Its not as far different as some of you may think. In fact, the similarities are rather profound considering how different they are on the surface. While I will grant you that the 9x/ME kernel was a raving piece of garbage, the NT kernels (all of them) were pretty good pieces of software for the times they were created.

All of you disparage Windows and Microsoft as if people will eventually realize it "sucks" as you say, and move to Mac or Linux. Well, let them. Let them start moving over. In fact, I hope Firefox has 50% share of all browsers in the next year. Why? Because when people use software, hackers dig deeper to find exploits. If the entire world was using the same brand of Linux, there would be just as many bugs. Programmers hired by Microsoft are not inferior to the open source community programmers. In fact, I know Microsoft programmers to be some of the most talented minds in the nation, and I know many at my school who have moved on to work for them. They are the same as the guys who write Linux kernels or who work on MacOS. They all live off of caffiene and work long hours.

The fact is that the number of bugs in any system vary directly with the number of lines of code, which varies pretty closely with the complexity of the system. If Linux were to finally have an GUI with similar ease-of-use, a driver-update system that even your mother or father could use, a massive base of hardware compatibility, mountains of legacy hardware to support, etc, I can guarantee it would approach Microsoft's products in terms of both complexity and lines of code. And all things being equal, the number of bugs would correspondingly increase. Why do you think there are so few exploits for Firefox at this point? Did those programmers never forget to check a buffer or handle an error case? Probably not, they're human. Same with the people who write critical system services for Linux. Same as the MacOS developers.

Personally, I think Linux has a long way to go before it will ever enjoy mainstream success. I shouldn't have to manually compile software from the command line to get it installed. I can install mySQL from an easy-to-follow GUI on my "crappy" Microsoft system, and yet I have to wade through miles of ./configure command line switches and wait around while the makefile runs a thousand and one compilations. All to run the same underlying software. Sure, open source is great, but lets be realistic, the VAST majority of us can and do use the same binaries. It just isn't practical. If I want to compile my own on my super-optimizing compiler for my Itanium system or something, let me have at it, but a more practical system is needed for the majority of Linux users.

Linux is writtey by programmers for programmers. Windows is written by programmers for users. When they figure out that the purpose of software development is ultimately to satisfy the needs of the end user, then Linux will be successful. Until then, I'm sticking with Microsoft for most of my work.

 

[TheHeadFL]

By the way, as far as limiting bugs and checking buffers and such, you should take notice that Microsoft is embracing .NET. The .NET common runtime language automatically handles many of these problems, since it introduces "managed" code to Windows platforms. It also will support Linux in the future, meaning there will be common binaries. Its like Java, but much more efficient since it uses a JIT (Just in time) compilation technique... actual native machine code is run on the machine.

Not to mention, the new XD (eXecute Disable) bits on the new 64 bit processors will help tons when it comes to these kinds of problems.

 

[Tyler1989]

There are three truths to this world

Walmart
Microsoft
Google

One of these three will take over the world.

 

[SHAWN]

There are three truths to this world

Walmart
Microsoft
Google

One of these three will take over the world.

Lol, that is true. I am going to say that google comes out with an O/S and everyone will love it!

 

[Tyler1989]

Got news for ya mate. There is rumors of the goose or goOSe. Bah I can't spell it, pure rumor now but they claim google is making an OS and a browser type in "google OS" on their search engines.

 

[mikee]

I think after bill gates retires and dies some other dumbas$ will take over microsoft and run it into the ground.

 

[beedubaya]

Very nice post. TheHeadFL, I wish all of us could be this inteligent when posting.

I agree with you, Linux will not be successful in the user world until somebody writes an OS based on the Linux kernel that is easy to use, and does not have to go through ./configures and makefiles just to install a program. I use Linux on one of my computers, and I was thinking about this just the other day when I was struggling to get a program as simple as GAIM installed. Then it tells me I need all these dependencies. That just isn't user friendly. I have to say Windows is by far superior for the end user.

However, where Microsoft is going wrong is its focusing explicitly on home users and the computer illiterate. From the looks of it, basically all Longhorn is going to be is a new 3D interface that is such a resource hog most businesses who are still on older machines won't have the power to run it. Instead of making it simple, Microsoft has gone in the direction of trying to provide the most multimedia and eye candy it can. Businesses don't care about this. Thats why if Microsoft wants to keep the businesses and tech savvy, their "Professional" versions of the OSes need to be more than just the Home versions with domain services included. It pisses me off when I install a fresh copy of XP Pro and see it open with the damn "Welcome" screen, as the Home Edition does. The Professional edition should have this turned off by default, because businesses are not going to use it, and it will take much time to disable it on the thousands of PCs many businesses have.

Plus, they should design the Pro interface at making it simpler and faster for businesses to work, not to provide eye candy and happy sounds. At this rate, if somebody took the initiative and wrote a Linux based OS that was easy and simple to use, much like Mac OS, then I believe it would have tremendous success in the business world.

 

[ThE_MarD]

Heyyo,

One thing that upset me was how windows xp is very un-customizable like the previous windows os. it's rediculous how much more security you had in networked sharing on windows95 over windows xp! even pro! You can set security settings like full read/write if they provide the correct password, otherwise they can only read. Windows xp is like, you share it, and that's it. I tried planting a password onnit, and that failed cause it won't even give the other computers the password prompt, and just says "access denied" so I took off the password, and it still acts as if there was a password! still "access denied".

I wish they supported windows 2000.. cause if anything, I might switch to that. Longhorn by the sounds of it will be sapping a lot of my computer. Sure, that program that monitors your computer n' tries to optimize it for gaming by shutting down useless processes and a few other things sounds great, but.. if the OS itself is crippling preformance bad already..

I have no doupt that the programmers for m$ are top knotch man. You can' t just have basic understanding of windows and that would get your foot in the door. Heck no. The problem right now is that m$'s gotten to the point that they've pretty much stopped listning to the little guy. They only predict what we want, which is why lots of people say windows "sucks" now. I'mma take an example. xbox. Now, when they first started this, they consulted the developpers, they geared the xbox system for developpers specs and the SDK too. There was no doupt for all that xbox was the easiest of the 3 main consoles for making games. Now? xbox360? developpers are upset. It's not the system they were hoping for. multithreading is the future of coding sure, but many developpers asked m$ to make xbox360 more single core n' such, but that was thrown out the window, plus the apparent bottlenecks in preformance the cpu's actually bring on the system are aslo diserning. They say the gpu is fine, ati did a gj on that.

I think the main reason people don't like windows is cause of the company behind it, the monopoly. I mean, after tons n' tons of people were switching to firefox due to less spyware.. how did m$ respond? they bought out an anti-spyware company and intergrated that into windows update, thus malicious spyware removal tool was born. They cared about statistics and how theirs were dropping. If we would've spammed their customer feedback aboot spyware problems with IE and not start switching to other browsers like firefox? nothing probably would've happened, cause they controlled the browser audience.

Now, I'm no dolt, I know that both ati and nvidia have put out some bad drivers, I don't blame windows on that. I've had crappy ones in the past, which's why I have 2 driver folders on me comp now for both ati and (now outdated cause I don't have one of their vidcards) nvidia. a crappy drivers and a good drivers folder. Crappy drivers is just a crappy drivers to avoid.txt file to remind me which to avoid incase I check n' forget that I've tried that driver n' it was poor.

Now linux? I entirely agree with theheadfl. It's too complicated for most end users, but businesses are starting to switch to it cause of its price tag. It's gaining ground in the busniess world. Even CompTIA has a Linux+ certification now.

RedHat's Fedora Core project was an aim at making Linux more user-friendly. Definately the easiest Linux distro out there, but still plenty hard. Mainly cause the lack of supporting NTFS after installation, you have to pretty much read forums that NTFS ain't supported and you have to download your own packages and install those to get them to work. Another thing that took me some time to learn is that the terminal, the console, it won't work with folders that have spaces in them. Which took me some time to figure out why I couldn't install some packages. So yeah, you really have to learn linux, which for many is too tedious of a task.

There's definately potential in a linux-based OS to hit it big. Look at macos, that's based off linux. It's pretty big. I don't see macos gaining much ground if anything, cause it requires a mac computer, which most won't buy cause of how limited the amount of mac comp shops like, pretty much anywhere I've been.

Longhorn will definately attract a few people, not right away cause I'm sure most are too comfortable with windows xp for changes. If anything, I hope Longhorn's more like windows 2000 personally. I liked how customizable it was. It was a good os, and good for gaming after SP1.

But yeah, I'm sure the future of computing will be a good one, probably less constrained than now.. or so I hope.

 

[KSoD]

While I agree with most of the posts up here we all have to remember one thing. Microsoft does rule the majprity of the OS world, that we can't deny. But we have a decent OS with XP. Yeah it has its bugs and yada yada, but so does our car and we dont blame it for when we hit a tree. At the same time how is MS going to get the world to switch to "Longhorn" now that we finally have a semi-secure OS in our hands. They are askin us to switch cause it looks better and has what 2 new options. AT this time i dont see a reason to leave XP. Longhorn looks great but it have more code like TheHeadFL said which will in turn cause to be more hacker and everything on your system. Who wants that after we finally got to where we can work easily and steadily with what we have. It in inevibable that technology moves forward. I love it but for MS to try and force a new OS on us for looks and not for security and stability (not that we will ever have those to things for sure in an OS) is wrong. How are companies suppost to keep earning profits if now MS wants them to update to Longhorn after they just got XP or 2003. It isnt ethical.
On a side not i would rather see Google take over than Wal-Mart. I have worked for them before and they suck worse than any OS. Wal-Mart is the ME of retail. But thats just how i feel.