Managing L'unix

Paul Murphy
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What Windows7 could mean for Linux

By Paul Murphy | October 24, 2009, 12:15am PDT

Summary

Microsoft visual studio is very nice : slick, easy to use, a good match for Windows7 and Server 2008 - but so completely out of step with the cloud computing and rental applications Microsoft wants to sell that marketing push is already feeling increasing resistance as it approaches the immovable barrier created by the underlying VMS and client-server ideas. And then what? Well, Linux is free and doesn’t have those limits…

Topics

Marketing, OpenBSD, Microsoft Corp., Linux, Operating Systems, UNIX, Open Source, Software, Paul Murphy

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Paul Murphy

Biography

Paul Murphy

Paul Murphy

Originally a Math/Physics graduate who couldn't cut it in his own field, Paul Murphy (a pseudonym) became an IT consultant specializing in Unix and related technologies after a stint working for a DARPA contractor programming in Fortran and APL. Since then he's worked in both systems management and consulting for a range of employers including KPMG, the government of Alberta, and his own firm. In those roles he's "been there and done that" for just about every aspect of systems management and operation.

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I’ve had people using Windows 7 for about three months now, and everything about it so far seems to confirm my first impression that it’s a lot better than Vista: effectively reprising the consolidation and debugging Windows 98 offered over 95.

Once you get past the sheer shock of using a Microsoft OS that doesn’t fail daily, however, you start to fret about the things that aren’t there: as a Mac/Solaris user, for example, I find the absence of multi-screen capabilities and the relative inflexibility of working panes and icons extremely frustrating. Still it is usable; and that’s a long step forward - at least until you get to development work.

Then the frustrations set in: Visual Studio is very slick, but very limited. Specifically, it’s great if your application is going to use a super-computer desktop as a graphics terminal but pretty much counter-productive if you want to sidestep client-server and produce genuinely integrated multi-host applications.

So why? Well, mainly because Microsoft’s inability to transcend its own 90s focus on helping its sales force make money selling client-server into businesses has left the whole .net thing Microsoft promised to integrate into Longhorn and its successors implemented, along with the promised PICK-like file system and security conscious display frameworks, only in marketing documentation.

Organizational disfunction aside, I think the key technical reason for this has been that getting those things done within the underlying memory and process management paradigm Windows NT+ inherited from VMS has proven, if not actually impossible, at least too hard for Microsoft to make a commercial success of.

So now it wants to sell cloud computing and applications rentals but doesn’t have the OS foundation on which the development of these products has to rest - and that’s going to force Microsoft into a build or buy decision.

They’ve been trying to build a network based, vaguely Unix like, OS for PowerPC for about six years now -with no success to speak of, so my guess is that the build exponents will eventually lose the argument - leaving Microsoft with three mutually exclusive choices:

  1. get there through a licensing deal with Apple;

  2. do it by adopting and extending OpenBSD; or,
  3. do it by adopting and extending Linux.

Each approach has pluses and minuses: the Apple approach would cost the most upfront, but drop a leading competitor out of Microsoft’s desktop markets; the OpenBSD approach combines low cost with a high quality code base and a well deserved reputation for security; and the Linux approach capitalizes on the breadth and capabilities of its community while threatening IBM.

You’d think Microsoft could do the Apple deal at the drop of a phone call to Mr. Jobs - who clearly wants to be out of the traditional PC business anyway - but my guess is that the emotional barriers to rational behavior on this will prevent that phone call.

If it comes to shootout between the OpenBSD and Linux options I suspect Microsoft’s techies will line up favoring OpenBSD as offering the stronger foundation for all the neat stuff they dream of doing, while all the marketing types will favor Linux - and in that company marketing trumps technology every time.

So the bottom line for Linux on Windows may be simple: Windows7 is probably Microsoft’s best OS yet and will therefore slow the move the Linux in the short term, but the limitations built into Microsoft’s development stack show it to be a dead end that will leave Microsoft marketing magnificent visions of its unfolding future while quietly figuring out how and when to abandon that code base for something else - and because that something could very logically be Linux it might be time for the Linux community to start paying a lot more attention to legacy interoperability with Windows.

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Paul Murphy (a pseudonym) is an IT consultant specializing in Unix and related technologies.

Disclosure

Paul Murphy

I do not work for, or otherwise receive anything from, any of the companies I write about. I have some money in a number of funds that bet on the markets, including the technology market, but have no direct control over how these funds are administered or what investments are made. I use Sun and Apple technology both at home and at work.

Biography

Paul Murphy

Originally a Math/Physics graduate who couldn't cut it in his own field, Paul Murphy (a pseudonym) became an IT consultant specializing in Unix and related technologies after a stint working for a DARPA contractor programming in Fortran and APL. Since then he's worked in both systems management and consulting for a range of employers including KPMG, the government of Alberta, and his own firm. In those roles he's "been there and done that" for just about every aspect of systems management and operation.

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Talkback Most Recent of 248 Talkback(s)

  • Success becomes a problem
    If Win7 is as trouble-free as advertised, then there will be a mass-migration to it. This will make M$ great money in the short term. But once customers are there, they are less likely to EVER upgrade again! They are "happy" with XP now - save for the bugs, but fix those and they have no reason to leave.

    Buy M$ stock now - and sell it in a year or so . . .
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Roger Ramjet
    10/24/2009 01:44 AM
  • Good point
    I think that is a very real danger to
    Microsofts OS business. Personally I believe
    that there may be room for one more (Windows 8)
    and that will probably be the end of OSes as we
    know them.

    In a world where the OS is integrated with the
    cloud a whole new set of problems will emerge.
    Google is definitively on to something with the
    browser as an application platform.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    honeymonster
    10/24/2009 02:06 AM
  • Even M$ is Planning an End
    of Windows OSes after Windows 8 with the
    introduction of Midori, that they are touting as
    computing equivalent of PARC.
    Just Expect great
    ZDNet Gravatar
    ArnavM
    10/24/2009 07:28 AM
  • "emotional barriers"? MS NEEDS Apple competitor
    In your response to Microsoft not jioning Apple because of "emotional barriers"... I wanted to point out that Gate saved Apple in '97 by purchasing millions and millions in shares from apple. Keep reading....

    Few people understand why Microsoft needs Apple alive. Microsoft has been accused multiple times of monopolies. ?95 hit them the hardest with the US Justice Departments most aggressive pursuit.

    Since then they have been ordered to split various divisions off. MS learned it needs Apple to prevent government involvement. A kind of ?look, there?s our competitor, ooooo I hate them?.

    To this day Apple and Microsoft profit greatly. Apple stays alive even at the careless hands of Jobs and MS stays whole as they name call eachother to the bank.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Millystone
    10/26/2009 11:39 AM
  • Ahh yes, but it isn't 97...
    and Apple doesn't need MS anymore. Yes Apple was mismanaged almost to death in the 90's but they just had the most profitable quarter in the history of the company. ....In a recession!

    Also it wasn't Steve Jobs who put them in that position. He came back in 97 with Apple's acquisition of Next and they didn't become profitable until he took the reins again.

    It's not that "Apple stays alive even at the careless hands of Jobs", it's Apple stays alive because it's in the hands of Jobs.

    I'm not swayed by MS or Apple but I thought I would set the record straight wink
    ZDNet Gravatar
    awasson@...
    10/26/2009 10:55 PM
  • Correct
    That is correct, Apple booted Jobs from the board and went
    steadily down hill from there. I doubt that there would even
    be an Apple today if Jobs had not come back. There was a
    series of "what ifs" back then that could have changed the
    whole landscape of personal computing. If IBM hadn't got
    into the game the PC would have remained "personal" (not
    business) for a whole lot longer. If IBM had completely
    bought the rights to DOS instead of licensing it, there
    probably would have been no MS today etc., etc.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    bigpicture
    10/28/2009 05:03 PM
  • Bull
    "I wanted to point out that Gate saved Apple in '97 by purchasing
    millions and millions in shares from apple."

    You might want to try having a single clue what you are talking about
    before you start making statements you know nothing about. In NO
    way, shape, or form did Gates "save" Apple. When Jobs returned to
    Apple, he agreed to settle a long standing law suit, where MS was
    caught red-handed having stolen code from Quicktime in order to
    boot strap Video for Windows (the WMV predecessor.) Red-handed as
    in, they didn't even bother to strip out Apple's programmer's
    comments in the code before baking it into VfW. Although caught
    dead to rights, Jobs felt the law suit was an unnecessary distraction,
    and settled with MS for $150 million. Jobs was doing Gates a favour.
    In exchange, they cross licensed QT technology, Apple agreed to make
    IE the default browser for the mac, and MS agreed to continue to offer
    MS Office for macOS for five years (which they would have done
    anyway, as it was, and is a profit center for MS.)
    But lest you make some ridiculous claim that that $150 million
    somehow saved Apple, please keep in mind that at the time of the
    ruling, Apple had in excess of between 3-4 BILLION dollars in liquid,
    debt-free, cash reserves. They not only didn't need the paltry $150M,
    they dumped it off to their education division

    "Few people understand why Microsoft needs Apple alive."

    You clearly are included in this group.

    "Microsoft has been accused multiple times of monopolies."

    Been accused of monopolies? What does that even mean?!? If you are
    trying to say that they were accused of abusing monopoly status, they
    have also been CONVICTED multiple times of this, as well.

    "Since then they have been ordered to split various divisions off"

    Oh really? What divisions would those be, pray tell? Perhaps you are
    talking about Judge Penfield Jackson's ruling? You DO know that that
    ruling was never implemented right?

    "MS learned it needs Apple to prevent government involvement."

    Apple had NOTHING to do with either the original case, Jackson's
    ruling, or MS' appeal.

    ZDNet Gravatar
    DeusExMachina
    10/29/2009 06:33 AM
  • You forgot the most important thing
    Jobs agreed to kill the Newton as part of that deal (to give M$ the handheld market with CE). Why else would he spin off the Newton into its own company and then SPIN IT BACK IN to Apple - to suffocate it to death?
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Roger Ramjet
    10/29/2009 09:44 PM
  • Fact Check
    The Newton was never part of any deal with MS. Jobs killed off the
    Newton (wrongly IMO) for the same reason he killed off scores of other
    projects, the same reason he killed off the MS lawsuit; he wished to focus
    solely on the core business of the mac.
    The Newton was not killed off as a result of a deal with Gates, nor was it
    killed off due to being unsuccessful. I have no idea where either story
    comes from, as there has never been any such allegation of the deal
    including the Newton, and the Newton division was generating profits.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    DeusExMachina
    (Edited: 10/31/2009 06:22 PM)
  • Happened at the exact same time
    And Job's unwillingness to sell the intellectual capital of Newton (there were interested parties) is telling. It was part of the deal - no doubt in my mind.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Roger Ramjet
    10/30/2009 04:04 AM
  • So?
    What difference does it make if there is no doubt in your mind. There
    is no doubt in my mind that I am the reincarnation of the Easter
    Bunny. My belief in that regard has NO bearing on reality. What you
    have failed to do is provide a SINGLE piece of compelling (or even non-
    compelling) evidence to support this absurd contention.
    Your contention on its face is ridiculous. First, it is not telling of
    anything that he chose to retain the intellectual property. If anything,
    it works against your contention. Second, CE was never all that
    popular, in fact, it was kind of a joke, as in WinCE (brilliant MS
    marketing, that.) Certainly at the time of the settlement, the Palm was
    by far the more popular platform.
    Third, spinning things off into their own divisions or companies was
    what Apple did a lot at that time. For instance, Claris. Buying them
    back is also something Apple did. For instance, Claris.
    Seriously, all you have done by entering into this is include yourself
    among those who don't know what they are talking about.
    This thing about the Newton is just a made up fantasy in your head.
    Fourth, your contention that all this happened simultaneously, so they
    must be causally connected is just plain simple-minded. Not only
    does temporal coincidence NOT prove anything, it is immediately
    apparent WHY there was temporal coincidence: they were both related
    to Jobs returning to the company. Newton was killed at Jobs' behest,
    and the law suit was settled at Jobs' insistence. These and a number of
    other things were all done for EXACTLY the reason I stated, to focus
    the company on what would be the iMac and folding NeXTStep into
    the macOS to form OSX, and to eliminate any other major distraction.
    Jobs said so at the time; so did other Apple executives.

    But let's see your citations.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    DeusExMachina
    (Edited: 10/31/2009 01:45 PM)
  • Just expect vapour
    "Even M$ is Planning an End
    of Windows OSes after Windows 8 with the
    introduction of Midori, that they are touting as
    computing equivalent of PARC.
    Just Expect great"

    Midori=Cairo.

    Don't hold your breath.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    DeusExMachina
    10/31/2009 01:48 PM
  • THAT GRAPE IS SOUR !!!!
    We hear you, Murphy. Now go back under the rock where you belong.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    LBiege
    10/24/2009 11:25 AM
  • LOL!!! - nt
    nt
    ZDNet Gravatar
    USTechHead
    11/16/2009 02:27 PM
  • Any chance you had at making a credible argument ended...
    ...right here:

    This will make M$...
    ZDNet Gravatar
    ye
    10/24/2009 01:55 PM
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