Reality Check | Ephraim Schwartz » TAG: OS

June 21, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Leopard and Vista: Last gasp of the big OS?

TAGS: OS

Twenty yeas from now a new generation of computer users will look back on the operating systems of today with the same bemused smile we look back at the cars of the late 1950s and early 60s. They had huge fins, were the size of a small yacht and burned up just about as much gas.

That's right, I'm comparing Apple OS X 10.5, or Leopard, and Microsoft's Windows Vista to those old behemoths -- big and flashy and totally unnecessary.

Instead our grandchildren will be using discreet, unobtrusive operating systems that will be invisible to the naked eye.

They will, if you want to think about it like this, almost be a return to the concept of a command line, only in this case they will respond to either a typed command or a voice command or perhaps a gesture to open, join, find, save or close a file.

Most likely they will be embedded in the system that you buy or in the network.

Operating systems that try to make a statement as today's crop of OSes do will look awfully foolish, and perhaps the users of these systems will also be ridiculed for using them (as if we had a choice). But imagine what you would think of the guy who in 1959 built an extension on to his garage in order to accommodate the length of his Cadillac.

The OS of the future will not, like the current crop of OSes, feel it is necessary to toot their own (car) horn. The truth is Leopard and Vista are not user-centric, but instead are ego-centric.

They are created by a massive team that is collectively trying to say, "mine is bigger than yours." Consider if you will who the team leader at the very top of each of these companies is and you'll see that I'm not that far off base.

In the future, however, the OS and the computer, will become a true utilitarian tool, just like other tools where form follows function not determines it.

Today, whether you look at the simplest tool like a hammer or a giant crane at a construction sight, tools in the analog world come with few, if any, frills.

There can be beauty in the spareness. And this I think will be the direction the next generation of operating systems will take.

Posted by Ephraim Schwartz on June 21, 2007 10:02 AM

March 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Cisco-WebEx will define the future of computing

TAGS: OS

While most industry analysts see the Cisco acquisition of WebEx as a shot across Microsoft's bow for ruler of the collaboration seas, I see more to it than that.

This is really a preemptive cannonball fired at Google.

Cisco had two choices. Either accept being the dumb pipe, a.k.a. network infrastructure supplier, for the coming age of SaaS and other Web 2.0 applications, or enter the fray and offer services as well as infrastructure.

This acquisition obviously gives us the answer to what Cisco wants to be. WebEx, most widely known for its video conferencing capabilities, also has a very strong hosted application suite, WebEx WebOffice, offering the same calendaring, e-mail, and collaboration tools that Google has.

Watch for Cisco to upgrade its desktop collaboration package with desktop tools like word processing, spreadsheet, and presentations within the year, maybe with OpenOffice. At that point, Cisco will combine these applications with their collaboration and unified communications, and you have a killer desktop with just about everything you need.

And what is not widely known is that WebEx also has a business doing on-demand desktop management. For this it partners with a company called EverDream.

The desktop management technology lets them take control of the desktop for security and virus protection upgrades, patch installation, and help desk.

"For Cisco this may be the more interesting part of the acquisition than video conferencing," according to Josh Greenbaum, principle at Enterprise Applications Consulting.

Google will have its work cut out for it. First, it will have to partner or buy a company that can offer the same high-value unified communications platform that Cisco offers, made even stronger by a recent partnership with IBM.

But as far as desktop management goes, it might be a bit of a stretch for a company known for its search capabilties. Cisco, on the other hand, is at heart an infrastructure company. For it, managing the desktop, especially when the network is its heartbeat, is a logical addition.

At the end of the day, this kind of comprehensive offering will allow the user to live within the desktop application environment, hardly ever having the need to venture into the outside world of an operating system.

This is the promise of Web 2.0. A pared-down and simplified OS that works in the background, more like an embedded operating system that you might find in simpler devices like calculators or even refrigerators, is all that will be needed.

Now for the real irony in all this. While Microsoft can offer the unified communications and the collaboration, what it can't offer is Web-based desktop applications like word processing, spreadsheet, and presentations. Microsoft Office is quickly becoming an albatross around its neck.

Microsoft will have a hard time transforming a business model built on that premise to one designed for software as a service, especially when its competitors offer the same functionality for free!

Meanwhile, Cisco knows that the world is moving rapidly toward a collaborative desktop environment that will finally take the complexity out of computing.

Cisco's WebEx acquisition shows us that Cisco understands that in the future, Google, not Microsoft, will be its real competitor.

We have a podcast interview with Charles Giancarlo, Cisco's chief development officer. When you listen to this interview you will hear Giancarlo downlplay any ambitions to offer applications on the desktop but either Giancarlo is being less than forthcoming or he doesn't realize Cisco cannot offer unified comunications and collaboration without the applicaitons that go with them.

Posted by Ephraim Schwartz on March 16, 2007 12:05 PM

December 26, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Early adopters uncover Vista flaws

TAGS: OS

Not to pick on Microsoft (heaven knows it is so easy) but the latest flaws found in Vista as published in the New York Times, "Flaws are Detected in Microsoft's Vista" remind me once again that most software companies use the public as its final beta test site.

Especially with a program as large as Vista, millions of lines of code, I suppose it is very difficult to find all the bugs unless you have millions of people pounding on it.

It reminds me of the robot arm GE uses to test how many times you can open and close a refrigerator door before it falls off its hinges. The robot just keeps slamming away, simulating the general public, especially in football season, opening and closing the fridge door. Too bad Microsoft doesn't use robots.

So, as reported in the Times, a Russian programmer found a flaw that allows a hacker to increase a user's rights and privileges on a company's OS.

Coupled with flaws in IE 7, the Times article says, "it would make it possible to alter files and potentially permanently infect a target computer."

Other flaws have been found by Determina, a company whose business is based on finding flaws in programs and reporting them to the ISV.

While the public becomes the final beta site most major corporations have gotten wise to the ploy and usually wait at least a year before they install a new Microsoft OS. They need to make sure all the bugs, or at least the most obvious ones, have been patched and eliminated.

Unfortunately, once the OS is available to the public it will be pre-installed on the PC unless you ask otherwise, in which case there would probably be an additional charge.

Posted by Ephraim Schwartz on December 26, 2006 10:08 AM