 I was reading an article this morning on ITworld.com, Why Windows XP Should Be Available Until Windows 7. Don Reisinger, the article's author, explains all of the problems he's experienced with Windows Vista, "Vista is nothing more than a pretty OS that loses any sense of reliability and reignites that uneasy feeling I got when using XP SP1." He goes on to suggest that Microsoft extend the Windows XP licensing to OEMs past the date of June 30th until the time of Windows 7's release (Microsoft's next great white hope). Windows XP was first released in October of 2001, which makes the operating system over six years old. In the world of computing, six years is a lifetime, and no one should be stuck with the same operating system that long, and now because of the failure of Vista, one-time rational people are still not considering the alternatives as much as they should; a lot of them are saying you should wait it out another two years? three years? who knows how long for another potential Vista. The following is my two cents on the matter, and why I think it's time everyone considered the alternatives.
Why Windows will never be great?The Windows operating system has too much going against it in order to be a truly good OS. It took Microsoft five and a half years to complete their latest operating system. I found varying estimates as to the cost of developing Vista. Tallying in the average cost of the Microsoft employee multiplied by the number of employees used to create Vista, the cost would come somewhere in the $10 billion range. Despite Microsoft's initial claims that they rewrote the OS and that they developed Vista from the ground up, it's become clear that much of the same code and bugs exist in Windows Vista. So, even with the significant investment of capital and manpower, the OS has been considered a flop, due to its high hardware requirements, user access control system, and drivers or the lack thereof. The company will never be completely willing to rewrite the operating system from scratch, which is necessary in order to remove all of the bloat that makes the OS so slow; the cost would be too high, and the Microsoft Corporation is out to make money, plain and simple. Why shouldn't you wait until Windows 7?First, why should Windows 7 be any different than Windows Vista? or Windows XP? There are two likely scenarios. The most likely is that with the overwhelming criticisms of Windows Vista, Microsoft will simply try to create a clone of Windows XP with a slightly prettier interface in order to satisfy people. People will be forced to purchase what is essentially Windows XP all over again, because by then the licensing for XP will most certainly have expired. Consider Windows 98; it was not a great leap forward from Windows 95; the interface was a little cleaner, but it was essentially the same OS; you can probably expect the same with Windows 7. The second possible scenario is that Microsoft will simply repeat the same mistake it made with Windows Vista. People are expecting Windows 7 to come out soon, in a year or two, to save troubled PC users from the failures of Vista, but Microsoft is unwilling to put forth any sort of date as to its release because they don't want to disappoint Windows users. Microsoft could wait as long as they want; it could be another six years before Windows 7, and if you're still using XP by then, you'll be using a 12 year old operating system. What should Microsoft do?Maybe it's pride, but I'm surprised Microsoft doesn't just follow Apple and design their operating system with a UNIX/Linux core. Apple must have realized that the cost of developing an operating system was excessive, and since it's so difficult to predict what will and will not be a success that the best thing to do would be to reduce the cost significantly. Apple relies heavily on a UNIX modular designed operating system supported by open source software. Microsoft could do the same, even if it were at the cost of having to take a foot or two out of their own mouths. Why should you switch?Well, since Hell hasn't frozen over yet, and Microsoft hasn't admitted that their operating system is in total disrepair and could use a pick me up in the guise of a UNIX core, consider the Linux distributions for a moment. First of all, there's variety. Windows is windows; every time you get a new version of Windows, it comes bundled with the hereditary faults of its ancestors. With Linux, you can browse; you have the freedom to pick a distro that is suited for your needs. And you don't have to wait half a decade between releases. Most distros have a new release every six months to one year. In six years, you could finally be getting a glimpse of the newest Windows operating system, or better yet you could be using a Linux distro that's several generations ahead of its competition. The Linux and open source communities are an expansive group, exponentially larger than the Microsoft staff. The truth is, that despite significantly less capital, Linux and open source products are at the forefront of new technologies, and they are the future; they won't make you wait six or more years just to get the latest and greatest. Only registered users can write comments.
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