Windows is 'collapsing,' Gartner analysts warn
Sat, 2008-04-12 20:31 — admin
The researchers damn Windows in current form, urge radical changes
By Gregg Keizer
April 10, 2008 (Computerworld)
Calling the situation "untenable" and describing Windows as "collapsing," a pair of Gartner analysts yesterday said Microsoft Corp. must make radical changes to its operating system or risk becoming a has-been.
In a presentation at a Gartner-sponsored conference in Las Vegas, analysts Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald said Microsoft has not responded to the market, is overburdened by nearly two decades of legacy code and decisions, and faces serious competition on a whole host of fronts that will make Windows moot unless the software developer acts.
"For Microsoft, its ecosystem and its customers, the situation is untenable," said Silver and MacDonald in their prepared presentation, titled "Windows Is Collapsing: How What Comes Next Will Improve."
Among Microsoft's problems, the pair said, is Windows' rapidly-expanding code base, which makes it virtually impossible to quickly craft a new version with meaningful changes. That was proved by Vista, they said, when Microsoft—frustrated by lack of progress during the five-year development effort on the new operating—hit the "reset" button and dropped back to the more stable code of Windows Server 2003 as the foundation of Vista. …
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Having worked at Gartner,
Having worked at Gartner, this certainly would not just be the opionion of two analysts alone. Its an interesting conclusion, I think which we all share. Somehow the robustness of the operating system has not been there with Vista. Sure, Vista does have support a lot of legacy devices for its adoption. Perhaps the next version should be more fundamental and start from a new base. However, becase Windows' user base is so extensive, it cannot adopt this approach.
This is providing an opportunity for others but given the ubiquitous nature of Windows and its applications, is that I cannot forsee any change or challenge to its domination for some time to come
Interesting
Thanks for your interesting comment. I immediately agree with all you wrote.
I have been worried about Windows, but also about a lot of other high-tech products in general. It seems that we are now deeply in the software crisis that was once hyped, much earlier on in the history of computers. Today's software technology just cannot produce reliable and fully functional software. Wherever you look you find a fairly obvious lack of function and huge numbers of defects.
Windows piles more problems onto that, namely an often childish design attitude that heaps fancy feature upon fancy feature without a sound basis, a pervasive unwillingness to repair well-known defects, even hair-raising ones that border on sabotage (see this, for example), and the use of young, inexperienced programmers who have much more enthusiasm than they have the ability to look critically at all consequences for the whole product and for the end user.
To be fair, Microsoft only does what any company is expected to do, namely maximize its profit, and so it may be our own fault just as well, as we customers gladly accept the most outrageous defects, flaws, and dysfunctional features. And I should mention that Microsoft is clearly not the worst offender either. I've worked a lot with Lotus Notes, and the number and stupidity of defects and flaws in that product sets new records, even when compared to Microsoft products. And I know several other products, like some from Symantec/Norton, that are also absolutely terrible.
The general problem is much more widespread. Witness the proud new BMW owner whose car automatically locks all its doors in front of his eyes, while the car key is inside, in the ignition lock. Witness a multi-million-dollar satellite getting lost due to tiny software errors. I could go on and on.
My take is that things will not get better until we use some entirely new, yet to be invented software technology, probably involving artificial intelligence to free the programmer from mundane tasks and letting him define solutions at a much higher level than bits and semicolons instead. Currently I can see no trace of this, but one day it has to come.
I've wondered for a while whether we should not have a web site where users can report the most outrageous high-tech flaws and defects, because some of the stories may not only be very typical and instructive but also unbelievably insane or hilariously funny.