Why Longhorn matters

Nah, the threat is always the number of features and apps Windows has. I patiently wait for the numberous softwares such as Nimda, SoBig, etc. to be ported and yet apparently open source programmers don’t think they are important. Ditto for feature implementations such as BSoD and RPC/DCOM.

Longhorn is just vapourware of the malodorous kind.

As Miguel says, in the past people have been guilty of sleeping at the wheel when it comes to assessing the threat of future Microsoft products – and especially in the Linux and Mac communities, which often have a kind of arrogance about what MS is capable of doing.

If it’s going to take Microsoft two years to build the kind of features that Longhorn is promising, how long is it going to take Apple – which has revenues smaller than MS”s research budget – to do better? How long will it take Linux developers to build something that is functionally similar?

The point is that if you’re smart, you start work on matching and beating Longhorn’s features NOW. You don’t lie around laughing about it, assuming it’s far off in the distance.

When I worked at Apple in 1990, there were people around who sneered at the idea that Microsoft could EVER match System 7. that kind of attitude is one of the reasons why it’s MS, and not Apple, that dominates the industry.

> As Miguel says, in the past people have been guilty of sleeping at the wheel when it comes to assessing the threat of future Microsoft products – and especially in the Linux and Mac communities, which often have a kind of arrogance about what MS is capable of doing.

This was true with, and only with, Windows NT 4, as I see it. Until NT 4, Windows didn’t have anything meaningful that MacOS lacked (such as a useable interface on a “real” kernel.)

> If it’s going to take Microsoft two years to build the kind of features that Longhorn is promising, how long is it going to take Apple – which has revenues smaller than MS”s research budget – to do better? How long will it take Linux developers to build something that is functionally similar?

Apple routinely does more with less. They’ll continue to. It baffles me how M$ manages to consistently do such a cruddy job.

> When I worked at Apple in 1990, there were people around who sneered at the idea that Microsoft could EVER match System 7. that kind of attitude is one of the reasons why it’s MS, and not Apple, that dominates the industry.

No, MS dominates the industry because they started by making a cheap OS for a cheap box, and marketed a cheap “me too” product. Since most people are basically cheap, they bought it. Only after the drove up their market share to the point of complete domination did they turn the screws on the world. Ironically, it was about that time when their OS actually started being useable (NT 4.)

My weiner gets hard when I think about Longhorn. Wow. That clock looks sweet.

Ian: I’m sorry, but I have to disagree with every point you made in your ‘asleep at the wheel’ comment.

> As Miguel says, in the past people have been guilty of

> sleeping at the wheel when it comes to assessing the

> threat of future Microsoft products – and especially in

> the Linux and Mac communities, which often have a

> kind of arrogance about what MS is capable of doing.

Having watched the Linux community off and on ever since some mainstream publication declared the rise of ‘desktop Linux’, I have to say that there are two kinds of arrogance – clueless and clueful.

As John Gruber recently pointed out, many leaders in the Linux community haven’t a clue about the importance of user interface and user experience design. Until this unfortunate blind spot is addressed across the entire Linux community, Linux will be doomed to obscurity in all but the server and embedded software markets.

On the other hand, that’s the very strength that scares hell out of Microsoft. (Believe me – I’m a former MS employee.) Every Microsoft group that deals with servers and server-like products, every group that focuses on computing infrastructure, sees itself as locked in a death struggle with Linux.

In contrast, Apple is already far ahead of Microsoft in the area of usability and moving fast along that axis. Apple’s very existence is based on the ability to make products that ‘fit to the hand’ and just plain WORK. It is winning over every software market it chooses to enter — witness the iLife apps and their Pro counterparts — based largely on their usability and fitness to the tasks at hand. Furthermore, Apple is showing a renewed interest in *dominating* the high end in limited, high-visibility markets.

Finally, Apple — rather than attempting to compete against the strengths of Linux — is smoothly embracing *and co-opting* the Linux revolution, doing the work that the Linux community appears unwilling and/or unable to do, making the rock-solid Linux infrastructure truly usable.

It’s quite plain (IMO) that Apple has no intention of ignoring Longhorn. On the other hand, they have no intention of ignoring the tasty eggs in Microsoft’s nest, either.

> If it’s going to take Microsoft two years to build the kind

> of features that Longhorn is promising, how long is it going

> to take Apple – which has revenues smaller than MS”s research

> budget – to do better? How long will it take Linux developers

> to build something that is functionally similar?

This particular clump of rhetoric sounds frightenly similar to that we heard coming out of IBM prior to 1980. The fact of the matter is that Microsoft has adopted the glacier business model – huge, slow and unstoppable. As Steve Jobs once said,

“You can’t just ask customers what they want and

then try to give that to them. By the time you get

it built, they’ll want something new.”

Microsoft ALWAYS asks what their customers want, and ALWAYS tries to give it to them (if there’s profit in it). Unfortunately, their real customers aren’t individuals, but corporations and monetary flows. (When Bill Gates plays dress-up as Neo, his ‘Matrix-vision’ view of the world is composed of streams of little green monetary symbols.) This is Microsoft’s stumbling block when it comes to innovation — it only cares about truly useful software if it gives the company a competitive and a financial edge.

Witness the demise of the Microsoft “Neptune” project, which would have made Windows truly as good as Mac OS X, instead of ‘good enough’. While usability studies showed that individuals LOVED the innovation in Neptune, the project was killed because it didn’t meet the needs of Microsoft’s *corporate customers*.

The Macintosh and Linux communities, on the other hand, create that which is first, cool and useful, and second, profitable.

Which is better? Which is faster? More importantly, will the Longhorn team labor for years to deliver what you and I want, or what the Fortune 500 wants? I’m betting the latter.

> The point is that if you’re smart, you start work on

> matching and beating Longhorn’s features NOW.

> You don’t lie around laughing about it, assuming it’s

> far off in the distance.

This depends entirely on whether you feel Longhorn’s feature set is WORTH matching and beating. Why chase Microsoft’s dreams when you have your own? If you think your innovations can make you money in a world where Microsoft exists, why do the knife dance with Microsoft?

> When I worked at Apple in 1990, there were people

> around who sneered at the idea that Microsoft could

> EVER match System 7. that kind of attitude is one of the

> reasons why it’s MS, and not Apple, that dominates

> the industry.

Sorry – the major reason that Microsoft dominates the industry is that IBM’s corporate lawyers were quite incompentent from at least 1975 through 1985.

Microsoft did indeed match the System 1.0 – in 1989; System 7 – in 1995 (or 1998, depending on who you ask). It’s quite clear they will match Mac OS X Panther sometime around mid-2007.

Of course, Longhorn systems will be less expensive than Macs when they ship, but that’s going to be of very small concern for someone who purchased the same capabilities two years earlier. You get what you pay for.

Sorry Zato, but that’s complete false. First of all, I can find no reference at all to Longhorn being an interim release. It isn’t. There were rumours that there would be an interim release of an updated version of XP before Longhorn – but that’s completely different.

Secondly the idea that MS has decided to go with any kind of Unix is pure fantasy.

Third – and this is something I’m going to come back – Longhorn hasn’t been scaled back significantly. The main source for this was a Businessweek story, which appeared to claim that WinFS had been dropped. Cue complete denials from everyone working on WinFS. What has changed is that WinFS will first only work on local drives, and not work with network volumes – however, this was actually announced way back at PDC, and wasn’t something that was uncovered by Businessweek.

Serious Melangell, I’d be interested to hear your opinion. Minus personal insults, of course. I’ll be writing something in reply to Will’s (very good) comments tomorrow, but meanwhile, here’s two things for you to consider.

First of all, why chase Microsoft’s dreams? This harks back to the original posting that Miguel was replying to: Bob Cringely’s piece on allowing Microsoft to define the directions of the industry. I really recommend you – and everyone else coming here – read’s Miguel’s piece (linked to above), because he puts it all far better than I do. What Microsoft is doing with Longhorn is simply creating cool tools for developers. That’s a dream that Apple, just as much, needs to chase.

Secondly, Will’s getting on dangerous ground pointing at Neptune: you show me a Neptune, I’ll raise a Copland No company in the world of software hasn’t done exactly the same thing at least once along the line.

OK, I said a couple, but here’s a third thing to consider: Remember the title of Andy Grove’s book – “Only the Paranoid survive”. Apples NEEDS to be paranoid about Longhorn, whether its a real threat or not. Just as Microsoft exists in a constant state of paranoia about potential threats, so should Apple.

“If it’s going to take Microsoft two years to build the kind of features that Longhorn is promising, how long is it going to take Apple – which has revenues smaller than MS”s research budget – to do better? How long will it take Linux developers to build something that is functionally similar?”

Given Apple’s ability to produce a solid operating system on a shoestring, and Microsoft’s ability to produce one full of holes on an unlimited budget, I feel quite confident that Apple will exceed whatever Longhorn can dredge up … Everyone knows that Longhorn has only been delayed so much because Microsoft has to reverse engineer the best parts of Panther.

http://www.longhornblogs.com/akinney/archive/2004/04/28/3259.aspx

Its all very well saying that Longhorn doesn’t matter but to at least 90% of desktop users Linux doesn’t matter. Linux is just not easy enough for an idiot to use and until it fixes this the idiots will use microsoft – licensing fees or not.

I don’t think Windows will ever catch up what OSX is building at the moment. And I’m even a Windows user! MacOS is just better, face it. I’m thinking about switching, unless Longhorn will be the best one ever seen.