Technologizer's "The Future of Windows": Scoobs, Foley, Baig, Windex Wisecracks From BoomTown and More!

I used to be quite a fan of Windows and Microsoft. They wore me out waiting for substantive changes to the underpinnings not just superficial fluff.

Even though much of Windows (and the older underlying DOS) was borrowed technology (although borrowed more honestly than Facebook was). Gates had a good idea in the early days that said Windows was the much needed compatibility layer between applications and the already (at that time) exploding computer hardware industry.

That philosophy lasted for about five minutes after IBM threw in the towel on OS/2. Windows NT was the first, and last great version of Windows in my opinion. After that they were just copying themselves or Apple (or Netscape, or Adobe… in a suck the oxygen out of the room growth strategy).

Instead of forcing everyone to switch to Intel CPUs, they should have continued to run on a variety of hardware platforms. They should have also developed a compatibility layer for their office products so that that code could run identically on the Apple OS as well as Unix variations. That would have kept me at least a customer of their office products and/or would have spurred the OS groups to think a bit more out of the box. Instead each MS division leans on all the others for lock-in support, including their online products which are pretty pathetic unless you are running both Windows and Office.

Windows 2000 was the last version I used, and unless the world changes dramatically is the last version I will ever use.

Excuse me, I hear Steve Ballmer's chair throwing assassins knocking at my door.

It's interesting that you start this off by saying “be more like Apple” and then almost every comment that follows is a more subtle variation on that. We see suggestions to create a new OS and virtualize the old apps, to build their own hardware, to more tightly integrate hardware and software, to create better user experiences, to show fewer error messages, to simplify, to have a small kernel, to optimize for mobility, to be easier to network. The iPad should be “an inspiration,” they should “out Apple Apple,” their core OS should scale to smaller devices, they should have better ad campaigns, they should somehow be popular with young people, it goes on and on. One person apparently thinks Windows 7 includes an HTML5 browser like all of Apple's products, when Microsoft is the sole abstainer from HTML5 and pushes their own proprietary alternatives. Even Rob Enderle suggests Microsoft should make its own hardware and use stores to more tightly manage the user experience. And Louderback calls Mac users “Mactards” and says that nobody gets any work done with a Mac, but even he seems to suggest that Windows should evolve to where it pleases Mac users more than it does today. (!?)

I don't know what it means, but it's kind of depressing. Is the future of Windows always going to be the past of the Mac? Windows Vista/7 seem to have been made for Mac users who don't need them, and the XP users who are going to have to use them don't seem to want them either. And Microsoft makes office systems and office servers, 2 things Apple doesn't make. So there is some disconnect here, isn't there?