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What happens if Microsoft never has another Windows 7? Will everyone run 7 well past its support lifecycle? Will Linux win the desktop? Will we get a new round

What happens if Microsoft never has another Windows 7? Will everyone run 7 well past its support lifecycle? Will Linux win the desktop? Will we get a new round of commercial OS competition? Will Windows 9 try to roll back to a more traditional desktop OS? I think these questions will be determined by what businesses do, being the intractable giant footprint of desktop usage (with apologies to SteamOS). Microsoft is offering extended support for XP, but at discouragement prices. 7 will probably be similar, so "just stick on 7 forever" is out. Commercial OS competition seems an unlikely possibility. It'd be hard to attract new entrants when those currently best positioned to exploit the market are either near monopolies or free. It's too bad, more competition in the space would probably produce some really great ideas. Big companies do learn from their mistakes, even after years of heading in the wrong direction. There's just so much inertia in capital. IBM and Apple have shown that you can coast for a long time on bad decisions then make a startling recovery. Sometimes this takes a massive cultural shift though, or visionary new leadership. It could happen, and probably will eventually. We're on a tight timeframe though, so I put the chances of that happening before Windows 9's release at only around 20%. That only leaves the possibility that some Linux variant will take over, maybe one designed to really cater to small to medium sized business owners. MS Office probably keeps that from ever happening though. (And I can't feel that comfortable about any line of analysis that ends with, "Linux will take over the desktop.") I've run out of options. Maybe 2015 will be the year of Android on the desktop. EDIT: Or Apple, sure.

mmorris 13y ago
I'm not an expert, but I was under the impression that Windows 8.1 is already rolling back some of the changes from Win 7 -> 8. I'd imagine MS will do a bit more of that and fix some bugs, and for the most part people will just get used to Win 8. Though I'd love if any of the competitors gained some marketshare out of this. More Linux on the desktop would be a good thing.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  Windows 8.1 just eased up on a few of the more extreme UI decisions. They aren't making it into Win 7 again. The Start Menu, for example, is still Metro. All they did was add a button where the start menu used to be that opens the Metro UI, allowing users to open the start menu without swiping or using the Win key.
- dijit 13y ago
  They added a button to take you to metro where the start menu used to be. that's the only change I've heard of.
  - nilsbunger 13y ago
    You can also default-boot to the desktop, and a lot of the built-in apps improved (e.g. Mail). The split-personality thing with two IEs is still there though...
davidgerard 13y ago
The interesting thing is that Vista and 7 are substantially identical - same interface, benchmark about the same ... but people typically tried out Vista in 1GB and 7 in 2GB. And businesses I saw moved from XP to 7 mostly so they could use more than 3GB memory. YMMV of course. But as a parallel, remember that the Edsel is famous as Ford's greatest failure, and its followup the Comet as one of Ford's greatest hits ... but the Comet was a reskinned rebranding of what was going to be the next Edsel.
- qq66 13y ago
  Architecturally Vista and 7 might be similar but a lot of software fails in strange ways in Vista and not in 7. It's now worse because nobody tests against Vista.
- fournm 13y ago
  The other difference between most people's first attempts with Vista and 7 is that by the time of 7's release, even Nvidia had cleaned up their driver situation (and Creative, the other main offender, seemed to basically vanish as a company you'd need something from).
- djpowell 13y ago
  Vista had some horrible graphics performance, by disabling 2D graphics acceleration, and in keeping shadow copies of graphics buffers in RAM. There is some explanation here: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/2d-windows-gdi,review-31795-7.html http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/2d-windows-gdi,review-31795-7....
- codeflo 13y ago
  Vista also changed a lot with the service packs. People's impression of Vista was Vista SP0, which was slow (horrible file copy performance) and in my opinion barely usable (UAC prompts every five seconds). SP1/2 fixed a lot of those, so the jump from Vista SP2 to Windows 7 was a lot less dramatic.
- wvenable 13y ago
  Vista was rushed out; it's effectively the beta version of Windows 7. Going back to Vista after using 7, you can see where the UI is sort of a half-way between XP and 7. There were many performance and usability enhancements made to 7.
trimbo 13y ago
> What happens if Microsoft never has another Windows 7? Similar things were said during the Vista era. "What happens if Microsoft never has another XP?"
- marcosdumay 13y ago
  Yes, but they got "another XP". They are just discontinuing it now, and they give no signs that they'll make another one. Anyway, you can't compare the magnitude of the problems of Vista with the ones of Windows 8.x.
sliverstorm 13y ago
Corporations don't want to upgrade operating systems at the same pace as Microsoft releases them anyway. Hell, there are companies that are only just now finally upgrading or decommissioning RHEL4, and every release of RHEL is 100% targeted at corporate users. (RHEL4 initial release: 2005. RHEL5 initial release: 2007) Personally, I bet if Microsoft only focuses on making a good "commercial" OS on the "tock", it could still work out fine. Then they can use the "tick" to be creative and go after "private" use, and the corporations won't care.
- grecy 13y ago
  My company (a smallish telco) is just putting the final touches on the plan to move from XP->Win7 in Q1 2014 (that means late 2014).
- mhurron 13y ago
  > companies that are only just now finally upgrading or decommissioning RHEL4 RHEL 4 is supported until 2015. Starting it's replacement now is pretty normal.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    Yes, I understand. My point is, corporations don't want to upgrade their OS every 3-5 years no matter what the new OS is, and RHEL4 is decent evidence!
nilsbunger 13y ago
I think it'll play out like the XP-->Win7 transition: consumers are almost all on Win7+, because XP hasn't been sold bundled on a PC in over 3 years. Businesses are still on XP (they have "downgrade rights" to install XP) and are dragging their feet because it's a painful migration. So I think businesses will be on Win7 for a LONG time, until commercial support expires. That would mean at least thru 2017 or 2018. And businesses will pressure MS to maintain support even longer, because they "just switched" to Win7. I don't see this being a big win for Linux or Mac though either. The drag on upgrades in businesses is because of compatibility and training issues. A switch to Linux / Mac is 100x more disruptive to a business than a switch from XP --> Win 7. The real disruption isn't linux or mac, it's iOS and Android. I'm convinced that it'll be easier for tablets to grow a keyboard and some multitasking, than for PCs to "slim down" while maintaining compatibility with normal Windows applications.
digikata 13y ago
I wonder if there are any Linux distributions which will try to pickup Win XP & 7 business users with wine compatibility for old apps. Combine that with a app store with a good core range of business applications and you might be able to get access to the small business market.
Silhouette 13y ago
What happens if Microsoft never has another Windows 7? I can see a few plausible results, but none of them looks pretty for Microsoft. One option is that the cloud (or IMHO more likely in the long run, private cloud) trend continues, and browsers and mobile operating systems approach the level where they can host applications that compete with heavyweight desktop apps. At this point, server and infrastructure providers win, general software companies move to a client-server model and do OK, and Microsoft die because Windows and Office are finished. If relatively thin clients aren't up to the job fast enough, or if things like security and privacy concerns start to take precedence, then there's a void in the desktop space. Apple could make a strong play for it, with the resources and existing platform to build on; how many business laptops aren't Apple boxes these days? Linux distributions aimed squarely at non-technical users could rise, with some interesting possibilities created by the likes of Valve. And of course there is always Microsoft's biggest traditional competitor on the desktop: pirated copies of Windows versions people actually like. In these kinds of scenarios, the alternative platforms probably all win to some extent, general software companies might struggle a bit with portability and start specialising in different platforms again (particularly if we wind up with an "app store" model for serious desktop applications) but will do OK, and Microsoft die because (legally obtained) Windows is a shadow of its former self and Office's main selling point -- that everyone else is using it -- probably ceases to apply. Basically, the only software developer that really loses out if Microsoft don't produce another Windows XP or Windows 7 is Microsoft, and if that happens, I see no likely scenario that ends well for them. For everyone else, the interesting questions are mostly about how diverse/competitive/specialised the alternative platforms become.

mmorris 13y ago

I'm not an expert, but I was under the impression that Windows 8.1 is already rolling back some of the changes from Win 7 -> 8. I'd imagine MS will do a bit more of that and fix some bugs, and for the most part people will just get used to Win 8. Though I'd love if any of the competitors gained some marketshare out of this. More Linux on the desktop would be a good thing.

sliverstorm 13y ago
Windows 8.1 just eased up on a few of the more extreme UI decisions. They aren't making it into Win 7 again. The Start Menu, for example, is still Metro. All they did was add a button where the start menu used to be that opens the Metro UI, allowing users to open the start menu without swiping or using the Win key.
dijit 13y ago
They added a button to take you to metro where the start menu used to be. that's the only change I've heard of.
- nilsbunger 13y ago
  You can also default-boot to the desktop, and a lot of the built-in apps improved (e.g. Mail). The split-personality thing with two IEs is still there though...

davidgerard 13y ago

The interesting thing is that Vista and 7 are substantially identical - same interface, benchmark about the same ... but people typically tried out Vista in 1GB and 7 in 2GB. And businesses I saw moved from XP to 7 mostly so they could use more than 3GB memory. YMMV of course. But as a parallel, remember that the Edsel is famous as Ford's greatest failure, and its followup the Comet as one of Ford's greatest hits ... but the Comet was a reskinned rebranding of what was going to be the next Edsel.

qq66 13y ago
Architecturally Vista and 7 might be similar but a lot of software fails in strange ways in Vista and not in 7. It's now worse because nobody tests against Vista.
fournm 13y ago
The other difference between most people's first attempts with Vista and 7 is that by the time of 7's release, even Nvidia had cleaned up their driver situation (and Creative, the other main offender, seemed to basically vanish as a company you'd need something from).
djpowell 13y ago
Vista had some horrible graphics performance, by disabling 2D graphics acceleration, and in keeping shadow copies of graphics buffers in RAM. There is some explanation here: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/2d-windows-gdi,review-31795-7.html http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/2d-windows-gdi,review-31795-7....
codeflo 13y ago
Vista also changed a lot with the service packs. People's impression of Vista was Vista SP0, which was slow (horrible file copy performance) and in my opinion barely usable (UAC prompts every five seconds). SP1/2 fixed a lot of those, so the jump from Vista SP2 to Windows 7 was a lot less dramatic.
wvenable 13y ago
Vista was rushed out; it's effectively the beta version of Windows 7. Going back to Vista after using 7, you can see where the UI is sort of a half-way between XP and 7. There were many performance and usability enhancements made to 7.

trimbo 13y ago

> What happens if Microsoft never has another Windows 7? Similar things were said during the Vista era. "What happens if Microsoft never has another XP?"

marcosdumay 13y ago
Yes, but they got "another XP". They are just discontinuing it now, and they give no signs that they'll make another one. Anyway, you can't compare the magnitude of the problems of Vista with the ones of Windows 8.x.

sliverstorm 13y ago

Corporations don't want to upgrade operating systems at the same pace as Microsoft releases them anyway. Hell, there are companies that are only just now finally upgrading or decommissioning RHEL4, and every release of RHEL is 100% targeted at corporate users. (RHEL4 initial release: 2005. RHEL5 initial release: 2007) Personally, I bet if Microsoft only focuses on making a good "commercial" OS on the "tock", it could still work out fine. Then they can use the "tick" to be creative and go after "private" use, and the corporations won't care.

grecy 13y ago
My company (a smallish telco) is just putting the final touches on the plan to move from XP->Win7 in Q1 2014 (that means late 2014).
mhurron 13y ago
> companies that are only just now finally upgrading or decommissioning RHEL4 RHEL 4 is supported until 2015. Starting it's replacement now is pretty normal.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  Yes, I understand. My point is, corporations don't want to upgrade their OS every 3-5 years no matter what the new OS is, and RHEL4 is decent evidence!

nilsbunger 13y ago

I think it'll play out like the XP-->Win7 transition: consumers are almost all on Win7+, because XP hasn't been sold bundled on a PC in over 3 years. Businesses are still on XP (they have "downgrade rights" to install XP) and are dragging their feet because it's a painful migration. So I think businesses will be on Win7 for a LONG time, until commercial support expires. That would mean at least thru 2017 or 2018. And businesses will pressure MS to maintain support even longer, because they "just switched" to Win7. I don't see this being a big win for Linux or Mac though either. The drag on upgrades in businesses is because of compatibility and training issues. A switch to Linux / Mac is 100x more disruptive to a business than a switch from XP --> Win 7. The real disruption isn't linux or mac, it's iOS and Android. I'm convinced that it'll be easier for tablets to grow a keyboard and some multitasking, than for PCs to "slim down" while maintaining compatibility with normal Windows applications.

digikata 13y ago

I wonder if there are any Linux distributions which will try to pickup Win XP & 7 business users with wine compatibility for old apps. Combine that with a app store with a good core range of business applications and you might be able to get access to the small business market.

Silhouette 13y ago

What happens if Microsoft never has another Windows 7? I can see a few plausible results, but none of them looks pretty for Microsoft. One option is that the cloud (or IMHO more likely in the long run, private cloud) trend continues, and browsers and mobile operating systems approach the level where they can host applications that compete with heavyweight desktop apps. At this point, server and infrastructure providers win, general software companies move to a client-server model and do OK, and Microsoft die because Windows and Office are finished. If relatively thin clients aren't up to the job fast enough, or if things like security and privacy concerns start to take precedence, then there's a void in the desktop space. Apple could make a strong play for it, with the resources and existing platform to build on; how many business laptops aren't Apple boxes these days? Linux distributions aimed squarely at non-technical users could rise, with some interesting possibilities created by the likes of Valve. And of course there is always Microsoft's biggest traditional competitor on the desktop: pirated copies of Windows versions people actually like. In these kinds of scenarios, the alternative platforms probably all win to some extent, general software companies might struggle a bit with portability and start specialising in different platforms again (particularly if we wind up with an "app store" model for serious desktop applications) but will do OK, and Microsoft die because (legally obtained) Windows is a shadow of its former self and Office's main selling point -- that everyone else is using it -- probably ceases to apply. Basically, the only software developer that really loses out if Microsoft don't produce another Windows XP or Windows 7 is Microsoft, and if that happens, I see no likely scenario that ends well for them. For everyone else, the interesting questions are mostly about how diverse/competitive/specialised the alternative platforms become.