I was looking for something on Google and came across this article. It was rather interesting even though it is three years old. That is would be a good read for others out here.



by James R. Stoup
Jul 01, 2005

Longhorn, by the features

WFS: Cut
.NET Framework: Cut
MONAD: Cut
Integrated Search: Cut
Avalon: Who knows?
Indigo: Who knows?
IE7: You can repaint a Kia, lower it down, put rims on it and think you are cool, but at the end of the day it is still a Kia.

And so it goes, on and on. Feature after feature is cut, promise after promise is broken, and what do we have at the end of the day? XP SP3. If Microsoft fails to deliver something approaching decent with Longhorn then they will be in trouble. Big trouble. And most people haven’t even realized this yet. But they will soon enough.

Why are they in trouble?

Momentum. It all boils down to momentum. Google has it. Sony has it. Apple has it pouring out of its orifices, Microsoft though. . .not so much.

You see momentum is what pushes that reluctant manager to go ahead and upgrade his system instead of waiting for something better or (very scary music plays in the background) switching to Linux. Momentum is what gets a word of mouth campaign going that convinces your everyday user to go out and buy the latest OS. Momentum is what keeps the media friendly, sort of.

But lately MS has been getting all of the wrong types of momentum. They aren’t getting that “battering ram” momentum no, it’s more like at sinking ship momentum. You see the ram is going through, but the ship is going down. Big difference.

Right now Microsoft can’t even hold a press release about Longhorn without either saying its going to be delayed again or that they are cutting even more features. This really makes them look incompetent. I mean, I know they are incompetent but this really lets the rest of the world in on the joke as well.

And no matter how they spin it they have now reached the point where it’s impossible to make the situation sound any better than it is. Three years ago they could have made these announcements from a position of strength. Two years ago they could have made these announcements and then lied heavily in hopes of saving face. One year ago they made these announcements and it started looking really scary for anyone whose business depended on Longhorn. And now this year these announcements make them look like a company that is adrift, with no real vision, desperately trying not to drown. Congratulations Bill you have officially lost any momentum you thought you might have had.

The 3 nails in the MS coffin

In order of importance:

1. Microsoft

They have always been their worst enemy. Shoddy software practices are forced on programmers due to incompetent managers which in turn produces the mess that is Longhorn. Even if the computing world was relatively quiet (which it isn’t, not by a long shot) then MS would still be in deep horse pucky over the gross stupidity that their leadership has shown. And to make matters even worse management has now realized that this time there isn’t going to be a “quick fix”. There are no more features left to cut. This time the deadline is real because their competitors are getting their act together in a way that hasn’t ever happened before.

2. Apple

Making matters worse is Steve Jobs. He has Apple humming like fine tuned violin. Tiger is everything Apple promised and its only been released for three months or so. And I imagine things are only going to improve. And if that wasn’t enough Apple is going to squeeze out yet another OS before Microsoft can get Longhorn out the door. Ouch, yet another kick in the balls. Then you have this whole Macintel thing going on plus rumors about the iPod/ITMS/movie business all of which draw the attention of the media towards Apple’s successes.

3. Linux

Never forget Linux. They may be a disorganized, fragmented group who may not present a challenge on the desktop but they are chipping away slowly at MS’s dominance. Then on the server side Microsoft has finally realized that they are fighting a losing war. And this is evidenced by the growing number of MS backed “independent” research groups claiming Windows server is (pick one, cheaper, better, faster, more secure etc.). Those tactics speak of desperation. They are a smear campaign plain and simple.

Mindshare

This is a good indication of how bad the situation currently is and how much worse its going to get. Think about how much of a market share Apple has. Something like 3% of yearly sales with an install base of about 10-15%. Now, think about its mindshare. What is mindshare you ask? Well, its the extent to which people know about a phenomenon. The iPod has enormous mind share. You might not own one yourself but chances are you know someone who has does. The iPod alone has made Apple’s mindshare sky rocket. Now factor in the ITMS and how profitable it has been. Now think about the recent announcement of their switch to Intel. And then there is the ever present rumors about them starting a movie store much like the iTMS. People can’t stop talking about Apple and Jobs is just fanning the flames, trying his best to fuel the fires and feed the rumor mills.

And all the while the media focuses on Apple do you know who they aren’t talking about? Microsoft. Think about all of the buzz that MS has gotten in the past when they released a new operating system. And here they are about to release an item they claim is their most revolutionary product ever and . . . no one is listening. No one cares. Redmond is no longer where all of the news is coming from. If you are about to release a killer product, something that is going to save your company and allow you to ride its success for years to come, the last thing you want to hear are yawns.

News flash! Longhorn is going to be drastically overshadowed by Leopard and Macs running Intel. Make no mistake about it, Jobs is a master showman. As such, he will wait untill the best moment possible and then try and wow the world with all of Apple’s new toys. Who wants to cover a stripped down, bare bones, bug infested OS like Longhorn (which is already being called XP SP3 if that gives you any indication of how bad things are) when you can go look at Leopard running on a pumped up PowerMac with Intel’s latest and greatest chip inside?

Linux learns to game

More bad news for MS is called Cedega. And do you know why it is bad? Because it allows Windows only games to be played on a version of Linux called Linspire. Uh oh. Thats not good.

Gaming is the one area in which Microsoft can truly call their own. No one really even competes with them on the desktop as far as gaming goes. Anything else and Apple and Linux can put up a good fight but not when it comes to games. Until now. With the release of this product Half Life, GTA, Doom 3 and the rest can now be played in Linux. And if they can do it for Linux then they can do it for Mac. And that simple fact should scare the heck out of Microsoft. Because if that program is ported to OS X then the top games in the industry can be played on a Mac, using Intel’s fastest chip, using NVidia’s best graphics card on a 30” aluminum display. Over night PowerMacs could become the best gaming rig in history.

And remember, its gamers who drive companies to produce the best product possible. Normal people don’t go out and buy the latest and greatest stuff just because it’s out, gamers do. When you are playing Doom 3 you want it to be as realistic as possible and if that means buying a $300 video card then they will do it. If that means buying the fastest processor they will do it. And if that means upgrading to the newest OS then they will do it. Say, we don’t know anyone coming out with a new OS any time do we?

Realistically how long do you think gamers will stick with Windows if it turns out that the best gaming experience can be had on a Mac? And if the rumors are true and Apple does bring AltiVec to the Intel side of things then it is quite possible that Apple may be the ones who very soon are producing the fastest computers anywhere. And remember, gamers always want more power.

Women and children first

Here is my best shot at what Microsoft could do to try and turn things around:

1. Admit defeat

If only to themselves MS has to admit that Longhorn is a complete and utter failure. To have come this far, spent this much money and wasted this much time to ultimately produce an OS which barely has any of the features that was to make it great, is a beyond pathetic. Time to own up to the fact that everybody screwed up.

2. Thin the herd

First one out the door needs to be Ballmer. He is an idiot on a good day and he has just reinforced that image with his bungling of the Longhorn situation. After he goes then its time to go down the line trimming the fat and doing some serious house cleaning. Once that is done then look outside the company for a few decent managers.

3. Do your best

Since Longhorn is the only thing you got at the moment that is what they are going to have to sell. Try to make the best out of a bad situation. This is the point at which you should be treading water while you work on something else.

4. Dump it

Throw all of the current Windows code away. All of it. Everything from 9x to XP to Longhorn, everything has to go. It’s all crap and its time to jettison those reeking piles of poorly written, buggy code.

5. Start over

This may be the hardest pill of all to swallow but the way I see it they have two choices. Plan A, try and make a new OS from the ground up. Just like the people who designed Unix, security and stability have to be your main goals. But that approach is going to take time, a lot of time in fact. And time is something that MS doesn’t have much of right now. So, they might want to look at plan B. Plan B involves doing pretty much what Apple did. Use BSD as the core of your OS then build around it. Now, I realize that doing this would be a major embarrassment and would require the biggest software company on earth to swallow its pride, but ultimately they would see that it’s the best choice.

6. Decouple
There is no need to make IE so deeply attached to your kernel. Bad things happen when you do stuff like that. Same thing with Media Player, uncouple it. Strive to make the system as small as possible. You build the basic system and then offer pieces that can be attached as needed.

7. Move on

It’s time to tell the public that if they want to use the newest applications for then they need to upgrade. Everyone who still uses 98 has to get real. All of you still using 95 need your head examined. And any of you using ME, God help you. Microsoft needs to stand up and inform people that they will no longer bend over backwards to accommodate their old, clunky, piece of crap software. Its time to update all of your applications. 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP and Longhorn are dead, move on. That step alone would make the OS much smaller, faster and more secure.

8. Accept the losses

Microsoft is going to lose market share no matter what they do. If they followed this strategy then they would lose market share faster than if they stuck it out with Longhorn but in a few years they would be in a much better position to come back and reclaim what they had lost.

Wrapping it up

So, there you have it. The current state of the Longhorn, a prediction of things to come and a few hints for the folks in Redmond. It will be fun to watch what happens in the industry in the next few years. We will see if I am right. What do you think? What did I miss?

Update
Since I have received so many comments that seem to dwell on the same point let me clarify my position. I don’t think Microsoft is going to go anywhere soon. However, I do think that they are on the downturn. They have reached their peak and now they are in decline. It will take a long time for their influence to fade (a decade at least) and for a good part of that time they will still be a force to be reconded with. But that still doesn’t change the fact that, as a company, they are falling instead of rising.

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I guess they did not understand, I mean if they did do you really think they would of came out with Vista?

What are your views on this artical?

Wishful thinking...

If Vista wasn't my only option I would have gotten XP. Even without ever trying the product I knew it would suck all MS products due the first like 5 years. I am not going to get MS again Apple kicks ass and if I want to play video games I'll stay with my 360. I know that sounds like a controdicton, but the only thing that MS has done right in a very long time is the 360. But thats just my opinion.

and so goes predictions...lol...apple is losing its butt, MS is going to buy Yahoo, over googles objectionsin the media. Google cannot fight it out of fear of anti-trust action. Linux still only has about 5% or so of the market, and SCO is digging itself a grave trying to sue to get control of open source. If they win, there goes linux down the tubes because of threats of SCO suing everyone.

My son loves his xbox360....

The big problem here is M$'s corporate arrogance that has manifested itself in their software and products. They've traditionally had such a stranglehold on computing over the years that they've forgotten that you don't stay on top by limiting the end user's choices- they'll find alternatives every time.

Why do you think M$ has been trying like hell to make XP users (myself included) upgrade to an obviously half-baked solution as Vista? Because it REALLY IS a better OS? Or because THEY say so?

If anything, M$ got the fiscal equivalent of a ***** slap when they found out that people were avoiding Vista like the plague. They found that people weren't gonna be UPSOLD on an operating system that simply isn't ready for prime-time. They also found out that people weren't gonna be fed a bunch of crap regarding the four different "versions" of Vista, despite that they're virtually identical (save for some superficial differences).

Instead of trying to MAKE us use their products, they should COAX us into using a product that actually works AND just happens to have "Micro$oft" somewhere in its box. It's just good business- create a better product, and people will use it. Create crap and you'll be out of business in no time.

A warranty company claims the Xbox 360 has a failure rate five times higher than other gaming consoles.


company that specializes in providing warranty support to purchasers of electronic goods from various manufacturers, claims 16% of Xbox 360s experience a hardware failure within six to ten months after a warranty purchase


http://us.i1.yimg.com/videogames.yahoo.com/feature/red-ring-of-failure/1192354

microsoft cant die because of the way gates-ballmer started out cornering and monopolizing the market... like the operating system or not the working world requires it to run on now... i am not a advocate of microsoft in fact i have been using linux since 99 and it has replaced even os x as my desktop of choice. i think that things will change but it will be in a new order/future possibly when the world has to under go some real changes to survive ourselves.

as for gaming consoles... sony psp and ps3 baby.. blue-ray is on... sony isnt making that beta mistake again.

My views?

Typical anti-M$, pro-Linux/Apple/Google fanboi rhetoric you can pretty much dig up on 1.4 billion blogs and websites and is 9 times out of a 10 a complete waste of time to read.

Do not take this as a pro-MS statement simply because I slough off what has been written above. I use MS products extensively (it's my job), but I'm not saying they are a perfect company, nor do they have a perfect product. The article really is stupid literature, and is just one of the 1000's of pieces I happen across on a daily basis.

Here's how it breaks down:

All aspects of the industry, and the users within that industry, prop up or tear down their platform of choice (MS/Apple/*NIX). This just comes with the territory, and the millions of useless flame wars doesn't change the fact that you use what works for you, and that's the best you can do. What the fanboi's prey upon is the common consumers lack of awareness and technical knowledge. Hence why you have people that staunchly believe that Mac OS "never crashes", Linux is *always* "more secure", and Windows servers "need to be rebooted every hour".

Everyone hates change. So the introduction of a new feature, new piece of software, or entire operating system is met with the typical *****ing, moaning, and bewailing of "why?" and "this worked fine before, why did they screw it up?" and so forth. News flash; the IT industry doesn't stand still. It changes, new software is introduced, people complain, but then they get used to it as it's patched and fixed until the next software cycle. That's the raw of it.

Every fanboi trumpets the downfall of "x" company. *yawns*. This has been going on for decades, and there is no indication that it will ever stop, for any reason.

I will be blunt about this though, A LOT of Anti-M$ (see how clever I am by substituting a "$" instead of an S?) propaganda is envy based. For good or bad, Windows *is* the dominate desktop OS, and has a decent share of the server market. This just didn't happen by accident, MS made some very good business decisions in the course of it's lifetime, and those decisions have made it the company it is today. I'll bet my paycheck that if the situation was reversed, and a competitive product was the dominate force in IT, that product would be the target of all ridicule and venom the fanboi's could throw at it. That's just human nature, to ***** about things we have no control over.

True it has happened to me twice now, but I still love it.

what about Wii ?is that a dud too?

Please tell me. Do you not think they would make MORE $$$ if they made the product right the first time? I Mean look at Vista. Can you honestly sit there and tell me that it is not fuked up? You need at least three gigs of RAM in order for it to run properly. It takes up so much room. And for what? A whole bunch of bells and whistles that we do not need. I have Vista home premium on my laptop. The only reason why it is even called premium is because it is not the first version they came out with. Just think if Vista sucks now how badly it must have sucked before. I am sorry they should not sell a product that they have to "patch up." People pay like $300 for an OS it is an investment. They should not have to invest in something that they have to hope will get better.


And as for the dollar sign in M$ you are not the only person I have seen do it. Heck I even do it. So please do not try to call yourself clever....lol.

But yea if you think about it. If M$ is going to keep coming out with things that do not work properly, how long do you really think they are going to last?

People don't hate change. They hate change that results in worsened productivity, more stress, and FUBAR applications. People also don't like being UPSOLD on that worsened change.

The bottom line is this- if M$ were in any other industry, they'd be up poop-creek without a paddle as they'd be served with injunction after injunction by such entities as the Better Business Bureau for fraud and bait-and-switch tactics, among other things.

Vista shoulda been ready to rock out of the box. Nobody should have to pay to be a beta tester, PERIOD.

nahh Apple only makes microsoft tighten up, which they will have to, Apple will NEVER target the market that microsoft targets, they dont. 10 years ago when apple did, how many people were talking about how good thier computers are? Exactly, different market. Microsoft however needs to tighten up a little

I could not agree more.

I never asked for a flame war. I simply was offering my views on the article you posted and my comments were not directed at any particular person on this forum (the "$" comment is just my sarcastic poke of fun at the people who use it regularly, no offense intended.)

So let me make this clear, I never said that MS products were perfect, and I never said MS was the most awesome-est company ever. There applications/OS are certainly not bug-free and have their problems, much like any other computing platform.

That being said, and while Vista has it's problems, here's some other info:

Yes, people hate/dislike change and we are generally creatures of habit, I'm not going to back down from that statement so give up trying to change my mind about it.

Since the topic is Vista, let's get to it:

"Can you honestly sit there and tell me that it is not fuked up? You need at least three gigs of RAM in order for it to run properly."

New features + new security options + added support for hardware + new services + new policy settings + tons of other little stuff = more resource hungry operating system. Granted Vista has some obvious performance bugs (such as copying files from removable disks and network storage locations), and the demands of the Aero Glass interface, but disabling some extraneous services and not using Aero Glass are two BIG and simple changes you can make to a Vista system to improve it's performance. That and RAM is cheap, to drop 2,4,6 or 8 gigs of RAM into a box isn't going to break the bank or isn't unrealistic to to have on your workstation. Plus, if you run the 64-bit version of Vista (like the 64-bit version of XP) on 64-bit hardware (which is virtually every desktop/laptop of the last couple of years) if you were to have 4+ gigs it will utilize that memory because a 32-bit OS running on 32-bit hardware can only map the first 4GB of RAM due to an architectural limitation. 64-bit hardware/software doesn't have that barrier.

"It takes up so much room. And for what?"

Primarily legacy hardware/software support. This is both the bane and the boon to any OS platform. That support for your new digital camera or scanner, or that scrap-booking program you bought when Windows 98 was new needs to have drivers and/or legacy code for it to work. This takes up a ton of room, and drivers and legacy code are amongst the worst offenders for system stability regardless of OS platform. Vista seeks to minimize the problems caused by poorly written drivers and software, and does a halfway decent job, but it isn't perfect by any means.


"I am sorry they should not sell a product that they have to "patch up."

Well, unfortunately, this is part and parcel of the IT industry and something that we should either be used to by now, or at the very least get used to because the practice of patching software to add new features, plug security holes, or improve performance isn't going to go away.

"The bottom line is this- if M$ were in any other industry, they'd be up poop-creek without a paddle as they'd be served with injunction after injunction by such entities as the Better Business Bureau for fraud and bait-and-switch tactics, among other things."

Well, they have been brought up with a anti-trust case a few years back, plus they were/are facing stiff criticism by the EU on bundled software (WMP specifically) which they have since capitulated by offering versions of XP that have the offending software removed. In terms of fraud and bait-and-switch, they have made statements that certain fundamental changes to the OS would have hoped to have been accomplished, which proved frustrating to many people who were hoping that these improvements would have been implemented upon release, but if you have some links to resources about what fraud etc I would love to review them. Seriously.

Thanks all!

3GB, not 4. 32-bit can't even see the 4th GB.

picky, picky, yeah it will see 3-3.5gb not the ENTIRE 4gb that is true. I was just generalizing.