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Re: Vista R.I.P.

Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
>
> ____/ nessuno@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx on Monday 06 October 2008 18:03 : \____
>
>> <Quote>
>> Vista is awful. Everyone knows it, including Microsoft, and now
>> Microsoft's actions have made it clear that Vista is on its way to the
>> Microsoft junkyard with such similar failures as Windows ME and
>> Microsoft Bob....
>> 
>> Microsoft won't sell XP Pro to you, the end-user, but it will sell it
>> to OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) and system builders. They,
>> in turn, will sell you systems with XP. The deal is, if you buy a PC
>> "with" Windows Vista Ultimate and Business editions, you can have it
>> 'downgraded' to XP Pro until July 31, 2009....
>> 
>> Microsoft has been telling us for months that even they thought Vista
>> was heading for the trash. Back in April, Steve Ballmer himself told
>> Microsoft's MVPs that Vista was "a work in progress" and needed
>> improvements in system performance, software and hardware
>> compatibility and battery life. Wow, Vista is a work in progress after
>> having shipped for over a year and after more than five-years of
>> development. Boy, that's the kind of operating system I want to spend
>> my money on. Oh yeah. You betcha.
>> 
>> Why not, instead of waiting for 7, which may or may not be any good,
>> try desktop Linux or Mac OS X? After all, they're actually available
>> today and works as advertised unlike, oh, say, Vista.
>> </Quote>
>> 
>> http://blogs.computerworld.com/vista_r_i_p
>
> I finally saw some Vista for real a couple of weeks ago. It was on display
> units at a shop, next to a Linux laptop and 2 Macs (with Leopard). One of
> the 'Vistas' (among 2) was not responsive. The shop also had many Linux
> gadgets like Archos media players and photo frames.
>

Nobody is remotely interested in it, Vista, that is.  Microsoft have
done an amazing job of keeping the operating system "relevant" for
at least a decade longer than it should have been.  It's over, now,
though, being killed by changes in behaviour as much as anything.
We've arrived in a brave new world dominated by mobility and remote
working, of network-enabled applications and storage, of mobile telephony
and mobile computing.

Vista is the final release of the 1970s desktop operating system, with
its roots still firmly fixed in the single-user, desktop PC, view of
the world.

It's worth noting that Linux, from the beginning, was focussed on
connectivity.  Initially with an amazing range of terminal emulators and
an IP stack, plus serial and parallel-port networking, and even AX25
amateur-radio networking.  ppp & chat for modems, plus ethernet card
drivers appeared in great numbers early on, and top-quality networking
capability remains a very powerful feature of the linux kernel and
all derived distributions.  Since then, we've had netware/IPX support,
appletalk, bluetooth, irnet (since deprecated, I believe), wifi, SMB,
and much more.

For the Gui the X-servers have been inherently networked from the
beginning, by design.  Virtually all Linux software was designed from
the outset to be run either in a terminal, or in an X-session, either of
which can be done remotely over a network.  I appreciate that some kinds
of graphically intensive software don't work well remotely, but for the
vast majority of users, these are not an issue.  Even sound can be handled
remotely.  Obviously SVGAlib was not networkable, however, it did provide
a mechanism for some very low-powered machines to handle some higher-end
graphics, although it was never regarded as a long-term solution.

I still think that few people have realised the enormity of the "death
of the desktop".  The big-growth items in computing are pretty much all
devices and ultra-mobile PCs of various kinds, but even those numbers
are small compared with mobile phone handsets.

Windows Vista is the final release of an operating system designed
around the "one user, one desk, one desktop", in an era of home workers,
mobile workers, remote workers, knowledge sharing, network-hosted
applications and data, and most of all, marketing.  The future is about
connectivity and mobility, something Linux is well engineered for,
something Vista is not.

-- 
| mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk                           |
| Cola faq:  http://www.faqs.org/faqs/linux/advocacy/faq-and-primer/   |
| Cola trolls:  http://colatrolls.blogspot.com/                        |
| Open platforms prevent vendor lock-in.  Own your Own services!       |


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