7 ms·

The Windows Era is over...

36 points by rooshdi 16y ago

barnaby 16y ago
In other news, water is wet, and Generalissimo Francisco Franco is STILL dead.
TomOfTTB 16y ago
Short Version: There's blood in the water. People are realizing Windows could fail and that in itself is leading Windows down the road to failure because other companies are now starting to vie for Microsoft's core business where as they wouldn't have dared before(Example: HP buying WebOS)
- watmough 16y ago
  Windows is going to have to play nice with other technologies. To an extent, this is already in place, with technologies such as WCF that support web standards. I'm currently talking with a potential client about splitting out part of a Silverlight thick app to a platform-agnostic RESTful api to allow mobile and webapps. It's to Microsofts credit that this sort of thing is getting easier, though it's an uphill battle to sell such techniques to Microsoft development shops that still regard running a Citrix viewer to a Terminal Services farm, as a web-app.
c00p3r 16y ago
It was over in 2003. It's time to consider the ends of iPhone and Facebook eras. =)
donaq 16y ago
In March I declared the end to the Wintel (Windows-Intel) hegemony when asking... About five years ago, when blogging as an analyst, I asserted that computing and informational relevance had started shifting from the Windows desktop to cloud services delivered anytime, anywhere and on anything... That's a pretty odious writing style.
- Hexstream 16y ago
  There's a name for that: Unwarranted Self-Importance.
blub 16y ago
It seems that 2010 is the year of the cloud on the desktop. With revolutionary products such as Youtube, who can argue? On a more serious note, I really don't see why everyone is getting so excited about their devices becoming dumb terminals and giving away their power to corporations that own the cloud. I shudder at the thought of powering on a ChromeOs device and having to log in to Google to be able to do anything. Not sure about the Windows era being over, but we're certainly entering a Google era and it's getting really difficult to ignore Google. Both of the Opera browsers on my phone are locked into Google search (previous versions had mulltiple providers, Amazon, Wiki, etc). Firefox comes with Google. Chrome comes with Google. Android is tightly integrated with Google. A lot of people use Gmail and Gdocs due to lack of alternatives. A lot of websites use a Google powered search. I'll never buy an Android device because I'm getting weary of Google: they're becoming too powerful and control too much information. Furthermore, they are competing unfairly: they use their ads profits to dump products on the market at very low prices or for free, killing the (possible) competition. For now this has been good for the consumer, with two observations: you're not getting something for free, you're paying with your privacy; once google gets big enough it may get to be the only player in some markets and that always ends badly.
- loewenskind 16y ago
  I wish more people thought about this. Google isn't a charity, and even if their leaders really were benevolent they wont be there forever.
  - bad_user 16y ago
    No, Google is a company subject to the forces of a free market ... competition, choice, advancements in technology, natural selection. An economy where everybody gets their products / utilities from charities ... is called communism ;)
    - loewenskind 16y ago
      True but the only part they are actually subject to "the forces of a free market" is advertising, where they exhibit monopolistic behaviors (e.g. phone browsers being locked into google search). Every where else can be a "loss leader" for them which is extremely dangerous.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
manish 16y ago
PG: The other road ahead, September 2001 The whole idea of "your computer" is going away, and being replaced with "your data." You should be able to get at your data from any computer. Or rather, any client, and a client doesn't have to be a computer.
- buro9 16y ago
  John Gage: "The network is the computer", 1984 There's not really much more to be said than that. Most people here are aware of the competing visions of that time, and Microsoft never quite got it as their business model depended on (depends on) a computer on every desk. Apple never quite got it either (though, a little more now). Sun got it (obviously). Google got it even more.
  - KERMIT 16y ago
    No, I think Microsoft actually got it correct. It's a much better user experience to have usable applications running on a real computer, than it is to have half-baked web "applications" running on some remote "Cloud".
Enlightenment 16y ago
"The Windows Era Is Over" That is the most moronic thing that I've heard. Yeah, I'm fucking sure that you will use an iPhone or Android at your real job to do real things that make money, so shut the fuck up on the Windows Era is Over. Yeah Microsoft has lost the phone O/S war, but they sure the fuck haven't lost the business computer war.
deadmansshoes 16y ago
I have a "smart phone" with Internet connection, but I've used it about 5 times in the last year. Its useful for checking emails but horrible to try and respond. If you actually need to do something on the net, you need a netbook or laptop..which needs Windows or Linux.
- danparsonson 16y ago
  I have a smart phone with an internet connection, which I use daily to send and receive email, read blogs, search with Google, look things up on Wikipedia, etc. In fact, virtually everything I do with Chrome/FF on my Windows PC, held back only by a somewhat non-standards-compliant browser, which will apparently be fixed with the next major release of Blackberry OS. I send virtually all my personal email using my phone now (I keep it away from my work email account).
  - KERMIT 16y ago
    Are you a small man, in stature? I'm 6'5", and my thumb is about as big as the entire keyboard on a Blackberry. I try to press one key, and I end up pressing eight. That's why those devices are near-unusable by me.
j_baker 16y ago
I think that everyone is looking for microsoft's Waterloo to come, which I don't think will ever happen. MS is fighting a war of attrition where their monopoly is slowly getting gnawed away. If Linux, a renewed Apple, and Google didn't kill Microsoft, how will some pidly little thing like the cloud?
jackfoxy 16y ago
MS missed the chance to marginally extend Windows relevance by making Visual Studio more accessible and relevant. The "architect" and "testing" versions of the IDE are ludicrously expensive. And even though they claim VS2010 is better for JScript development (the MS name for javascript), it's still an inadequate IDE for javascript. I would think the point of VS is to sell copies of the OS, office, SQL Server, Exchange, etc. Not to be a profit center on its own. It's too late to attract independent and small web developers, but perhaps they could extend their life with corporate development by making all versions of VS free, even open sourcing it, and fix the editor so you can collapse down javascript code by curly bracket pairs now, don't wait for VS2012. A real shame. The .NET Framework, C#, Linq, and from what I gather F# were all conceived and carried out very well.
pragmatic 16y ago
Hogwash. I have more pc's than ever. Everyone I know has one or two. So now we have multiple copies of windows out there PLUS an android phone and apple device in a household. Microsoft doesn't have to lose for Google/Apple/Whomever to also prosper. It's not a zero sum game for one computer in a household. Multiple winners, not one loser.

36 points by rooshdi 16y ago

In other news, water is wet, and Generalissimo Francisco Franco is STILL dead.

Short Version: There's blood in the water. People are realizing Windows could fail and that in itself is leading Windows down the road to failure because other companies are now starting to vie for Microsoft's core business where as they wouldn't have dared before(Example: HP buying WebOS)

watmough 16y ago
Windows is going to have to play nice with other technologies. To an extent, this is already in place, with technologies such as WCF that support web standards. I'm currently talking with a potential client about splitting out part of a Silverlight thick app to a platform-agnostic RESTful api to allow mobile and webapps. It's to Microsofts credit that this sort of thing is getting easier, though it's an uphill battle to sell such techniques to Microsoft development shops that still regard running a Citrix viewer to a Terminal Services farm, as a web-app.

c00p3r 16y ago

It was over in 2003. It's time to consider the ends of iPhone and Facebook eras. =)

donaq 16y ago

In March I declared the end to the Wintel (Windows-Intel) hegemony when asking... About five years ago, when blogging as an analyst, I asserted that computing and informational relevance had started shifting from the Windows desktop to cloud services delivered anytime, anywhere and on anything... That's a pretty odious writing style.

Hexstream 16y ago
There's a name for that: Unwarranted Self-Importance.

blub 16y ago

It seems that 2010 is the year of the cloud on the desktop. With revolutionary products such as Youtube, who can argue? On a more serious note, I really don't see why everyone is getting so excited about their devices becoming dumb terminals and giving away their power to corporations that own the cloud. I shudder at the thought of powering on a ChromeOs device and having to log in to Google to be able to do anything. Not sure about the Windows era being over, but we're certainly entering a Google era and it's getting really difficult to ignore Google. Both of the Opera browsers on my phone are locked into Google search (previous versions had mulltiple providers, Amazon, Wiki, etc). Firefox comes with Google. Chrome comes with Google. Android is tightly integrated with Google. A lot of people use Gmail and Gdocs due to lack of alternatives. A lot of websites use a Google powered search. I'll never buy an Android device because I'm getting weary of Google: they're becoming too powerful and control too much information. Furthermore, they are competing unfairly: they use their ads profits to dump products on the market at very low prices or for free, killing the (possible) competition. For now this has been good for the consumer, with two observations: you're not getting something for free, you're paying with your privacy; once google gets big enough it may get to be the only player in some markets and that always ends badly.

loewenskind 16y ago
I wish more people thought about this. Google isn't a charity, and even if their leaders really were benevolent they wont be there forever.
- bad_user 16y ago
  No, Google is a company subject to the forces of a free market ... competition, choice, advancements in technology, natural selection. An economy where everybody gets their products / utilities from charities ... is called communism ;)
  - loewenskind 16y ago
    True but the only part they are actually subject to "the forces of a free market" is advertising, where they exhibit monopolistic behaviors (e.g. phone browsers being locked into google search). Every where else can be a "loss leader" for them which is extremely dangerous.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

manish 16y ago

PG: The other road ahead, September 2001 The whole idea of "your computer" is going away, and being replaced with "your data." You should be able to get at your data from any computer. Or rather, any client, and a client doesn't have to be a computer.

buro9 16y ago
John Gage: "The network is the computer", 1984 There's not really much more to be said than that. Most people here are aware of the competing visions of that time, and Microsoft never quite got it as their business model depended on (depends on) a computer on every desk. Apple never quite got it either (though, a little more now). Sun got it (obviously). Google got it even more.
- KERMIT 16y ago
  No, I think Microsoft actually got it correct. It's a much better user experience to have usable applications running on a real computer, than it is to have half-baked web "applications" running on some remote "Cloud".

Enlightenment 16y ago

"The Windows Era Is Over" That is the most moronic thing that I've heard. Yeah, I'm fucking sure that you will use an iPhone or Android at your real job to do real things that make money, so shut the fuck up on the Windows Era is Over. Yeah Microsoft has lost the phone O/S war, but they sure the fuck haven't lost the business computer war.

deadmansshoes 16y ago

I have a "smart phone" with Internet connection, but I've used it about 5 times in the last year. Its useful for checking emails but horrible to try and respond. If you actually need to do something on the net, you need a netbook or laptop..which needs Windows or Linux.

danparsonson 16y ago
I have a smart phone with an internet connection, which I use daily to send and receive email, read blogs, search with Google, look things up on Wikipedia, etc. In fact, virtually everything I do with Chrome/FF on my Windows PC, held back only by a somewhat non-standards-compliant browser, which will apparently be fixed with the next major release of Blackberry OS. I send virtually all my personal email using my phone now (I keep it away from my work email account).
- KERMIT 16y ago
  Are you a small man, in stature? I'm 6'5", and my thumb is about as big as the entire keyboard on a Blackberry. I try to press one key, and I end up pressing eight. That's why those devices are near-unusable by me.

j_baker 16y ago

I think that everyone is looking for microsoft's Waterloo to come, which I don't think will ever happen. MS is fighting a war of attrition where their monopoly is slowly getting gnawed away. If Linux, a renewed Apple, and Google didn't kill Microsoft, how will some pidly little thing like the cloud?

jackfoxy 16y ago

MS missed the chance to marginally extend Windows relevance by making Visual Studio more accessible and relevant. The "architect" and "testing" versions of the IDE are ludicrously expensive. And even though they claim VS2010 is better for JScript development (the MS name for javascript), it's still an inadequate IDE for javascript. I would think the point of VS is to sell copies of the OS, office, SQL Server, Exchange, etc. Not to be a profit center on its own. It's too late to attract independent and small web developers, but perhaps they could extend their life with corporate development by making all versions of VS free, even open sourcing it, and fix the editor so you can collapse down javascript code by curly bracket pairs now, don't wait for VS2012. A real shame. The .NET Framework, C#, Linq, and from what I gather F# were all conceived and carried out very well.

pragmatic 16y ago

Hogwash. I have more pc's than ever. Everyone I know has one or two. So now we have multiple copies of windows out there PLUS an android phone and apple device in a household. Microsoft doesn't have to lose for Google/Apple/Whomever to also prosper. It's not a zero sum game for one computer in a household. Multiple winners, not one loser.