The cloud

With today’s industry focus on the cloud and web-based applications, it is important for big players to have a product-line that offers a whole set of tools for everyday Internet users. In other words, the search engine as a single product will not be enough to give a competitive edge to anybody, let it be Google. For example, Google search engine users have access to Maps, Gmail, Reader, Docs, Calendar and a whole bunch of applications that will answer day-to-day needs. Microsoft is trying something similar with Bing Maps as a competition to Google’s.

Mobile computing platform

Today, a third of Internet users come from mobile phones. This trend will only keep on growing in the future as better products will be released for the mobile market. It is only a matter of time before the mainstream Internet completely switches to the mobile platform. With forecasts showing Android as potentially surpassing iPhone sales by 2012, both Apple and Microsoft have no other choice than to put their efforts together in a fight for their life.

What it means to the iPhone users

Well, this is good news and bad news for the iPhone consumer. On one hand they will be exposed to a potentially worse and less mature product. On the other hand, it will bring more balance to the search engine market, forcing Google to work on it’s competitive edge by releasing better products. Of course, things could balance towards a bipolar market where both Bing and Google will be better of with what they have rather than trying to take away market share from the other player.

Taking into account that Germany was until last year world’s number one exporter, this kind of attitude towards Google/Microsoft is very alarming. German administrations have a strong record for balanced view of economic affairs and their economic prowess is a sign of good economic management. Their position against certain corporations or products is most likely going to be justified by rational analysis rather than political motivation.

The bad news is the Google taking over the search engine market is going to be as bad as Microsoft’s dominance of the desktop market. I would agree with the conclusions of the German justice ministry since not forcing Google to have competitive behavior will end-up as being very costly for the search engine and maybe the Internet industry.

Windows Update: the real feature

Let’s face it, the only reason people should be using Windows 7 is that Microsoft will stop supporting Windows XP. But since Windows is famous for stability and security issues, Windows Update are something that are necessary for any user. So stopping support for an older version of the OS, is the same as forcing people to pay for a new version. That’s why we have built the habit of automatically upgrading to new Windows versions because we know the old one is going to stop working after a while.

Microsoft business model

Microsoft’s business model was initially based on licensing a copy with every PC that is sold. I guess Microsoft adopted this strategy to rapidly gain strong market position. The thing is that adopting this strategy means having to come up with new versions of the OS to maintain cash flow. Of course, Microsoft has mouths to feed and it cannot eternally maintain a product by cashing in only once when a copy is sold. To be able to maintain a version for ever, there should be subscription fees for Windows Update, which will make it possible for indefinite maintenance of a version.  However, Microsoft is not really interested in adopting the subscription approach because the longer a version of Windows will be available, the more other operating systems could build compatibility with that version of Windows and slowly take away market share.

What Intel Giveth, Microsoft Taketh Away

But if Microsoft has to tax us every time it comes with a new version of Windows, why does it have to be one that performs less than the older version? The official answer to this question is that Windows 7 performs less that Windows XP because it has “more features”. But a closer look at these features will show that they don’t add any real benefit to the operating system and that they are more look and feel features that will never be able to compensate their cost with productivity gain. One example is the ‘Drag and snag windows’ feature that is more impressive than really useful as I often find myself having to struggle against the feature when I move windows on the edges of the screen.

While these features are of an aesthetic nature, they consume resources and that’s why it translates into performance losses. In other words, not only Microsoft forces people to buy new versions of the same non secure software, it forces us to pay for stronger hardware to be able to have the same performance as with the older version. What we get in return are a few ridiculous features that will be forgotten after a while along with the older, better version of Windows.

This is what Microsoft is prepared to do when it came up with the idea of imitating Plurk. Of course, imitating would be a nice word as even source code seems to be coming from Plurk. In exchange of most probably losing its business to a giant, Plurk gets the right to make headlines in a couple of top blogs. Isn’t that nice?

Also, Google is picking on bigger guys by the day as it seems to be playing in Yelp’s ground. The bad news for Yelp is that it will never be able to compete with Google in the field of stealing away content. I mean Google is so notorious a thief that you have to be as big as News Corp to be able to afford not giving your content to Google for free. In other words, the best Yelp could do is to have only a subset of what Google has: Yelp only has its own content. Good luck for fighting Google.

Why should Microsoft be the one that has the right to index News Corp? Since Murdoch thinks that News Corp. is better off without Google, it is going to think the same about Microsoft. Therefore, Murdoch will let Microsoft crawl its website only if it pays the difference between traffic News Corp loses because of being indexed and the traffic it gains because of being indexed, that is the difference between loyal visitors and occasional visitors. You can bet it is a lot.

What about me?

A few scenarios

One thing is sure, people talk to each other at Microsoft. That particular employee could have been in touch with a couple of guys from the Windows interface team who shared the idea that Mac is an inspiration or that Windows 7 is a transition to a more Mac-style look-and-feel in future versions of Windows.

The other possibility is that this news was itself a rumor inside Microsoft that finally got outside Microsoft. The rumor could have very well been the result of the Windows interface team who were talking to a few close colleagues who did the same until it became a rumor. It just happened that that employee (it could have been anybody else) came up to the media and told about the rumor that then got public.

There is also another possibility: this wasn’t a secret. It is a Microsoft announcement of features for the next version of Windows. Since nobody believes Microsoft announcements anymore, they come up with a more sophisticated approach of announcing future releases. They release a ‘rumor’ or ‘inside story’ that says that Microsoft is working hard to make Windows look very much like a Mac. It could also be a diversion technique to hide the real intentions.

Really a secret?

It’s a known fact that Microsoft can’t get anything done anymore. It has lived out of its two major cash cows (Windows and Office) for too many years. Its strategy during these years was to consolidate its domination of the desktop operating system and the software productivity markets by making trusts with PC manufacturers. With many transformations in the computing industry, Microsoft’s dominant position is challenged more than ever where Windows does not seem to be relevant anymore. All of a sudden, Microsoft has to go out there and actually compete on the market. There’s just a small issue: it isn’t fit for competition.

Did Microsoft Borrow Mac Look?

Microsoft never was an innovator and its innovative capabilities will not flourish all of a sudden. Innovation is part of a firm’s culture and for big corporations like Microsoft, changing from a monopolist culture to an innovator culture is not feasible in an acceptable time range. By the time Microsoft changes its culture and becomes an innovator, Google has already conquered the whole Internet market. The best option for Microsoft is to do what it does best: not innovating.

Therefore, I believe that Microsoft borrowed Mac look or is in the transition process of having a Mac look-and-feel in the future. And they should keep it that way and imitate Chrome OS by shipping a lightweight version of Windows. I’m sorry to be so mean, but this is the best they can do.

On my end, I don’t recommend Windows 7 for those who have XP because it doesn’t bring anything new. The list of Windows 7 innovations is just ridiculous as I have made fun of them. There just doesn’t seem to be real justification to buy Windows, unless you have made the mistake of upgrading from XP to Vista.

So to answer the initial question of whether Widows is still relevant, I would say that it does not look good for the guys in Redmond. Their cash cow is being challenged from many fronts and I just don’t see how they can get the resources to fight the desktop OS war especially when the browser OS seems to be the future.

1. The new Calculator: this is ultimate value for Windows 7. Innovation number one, the new calculator has statistics and programmer’s options. Isn’t that great? A brand new OS with a brand new calculator. Now, when you’re with a client, take the opportunity to impress him with the statistics calc. Same thing if you’re in school. Show the programmer calc to hook up with the nicest chicks. This one alone covers the whole $200.
   

   Do I look good or what?

2. All new Taskbar: When you have multiple windows of the same application open, they get stacked under the same window. When you move the mouse over it, the list of open windows will show up and you can select the one you are looking for. Not only this radical Windows-7-only innovation is good for my business (productivity?), but it is also cute. Thank you Microsoft for improving my life and making computing a more joyful experience.
3. Ribbon Wordpad: This feature might go as far as making me use Wordpad! I mean older versions of Wordpad were so hard to use that I wasn’t using them at all. Now, thanks to the Ribbon, I can find those numerous functions more easily and be more productive when using Wordpad. I hope you enjoy this innovation as much as I do.
   
   

   Ribbon Wordpad has a total of 5.3 functions!

4. All new ‘Show Desktop’ button: No more removing the ‘Show desktop’ icon by mistake from the ‘Quick Launch’ bar. The button is moved to the left of the task bar. On guess what: when you move the mouse over it, all open Windows will become transparent. This is great when you wanna close a big contract with your client: put a nice picture of your wife as the desktop background and ‘accidentally’ use this feature to show your desktop. It might actually increase your chances of closing that contract!
   
5. All new ‘Drag and snag windows’ feature: after using it, I realized that I need this feature twice a month in average. Every time, I can save up to 20 seconds which means that in 5 years, I’ll be saving 10 minutes! This is 10 minutes where I can watch ‘So You Think You Can Dance Canada’.
6. Sticky notes: thanks to this wonderful innovation, I won’t forget a thing anymore. Every time I have something important to do, I just create a sticky note. Without Windows 7, my life would have been a nightmare. Thank you Microsoft!
   

   Sticky note: I needed this feature...

7. No more ‘Quick Launch’ bar: this is one of the best. When I installed Firefox with the option of having a shortcut on the ‘Quick Launch’ toolbar, I was surprised to see that the shortcut wasn’t there. Bravo Microsoft, what an effective way of getting rid of Firefox. Now, people will be forced to use Internet Explorer because they won’t find Firefox shortcut, Ha Ha Ha (evil laughter).

Ok, you can now admit it: you just lost $200.

Well, as I said, it does have most of the features but not all of them. Some of them are really making a big difference. So I gathered here a list of the top five reasons why you should go for Windows 7 instead of Ubuntu 9.10:

1. Show off: it’s pretty much like buying your coffee at Starbucks. The coffee doesn’t taste any better but people know that you paid more money for it. Same with Windows 7: people will know that you need a high-end PC to run it, so it’s your chance to impress people by letting them know that you can afford Windows. Of course, take advantage of the fact that Windows 7 Ultimate Edition costs more than $300 to show that you have money to waste. This is a great way of making friends who know the value of wealthy people.
2. Stay healthy: While most people complain over the fact that Windows is unstable, that it crashes and that it requires frequent reboots, they overlook the fact that these incidents offer opportunities to take brakes and rest for a few minutes. If you have a lot of applications that load during bootup, you can even go and have coffee. Your boos doesn’t find you in your office? You had to restart Windows! This is just one of the benefits: imagine all that money you save not visiting a chiropractor or not having to pay gym membership.
3. Become a Criminal: You can do all kinds of dirty things and have all sorts of garbage on your hard-drive, but law enforcement will not be able to access your data if you have hard-drive encryption with Ultimate Edition. That’s because there is no backdoor to access data on a BitLocked hard-drive. If you consider the benefits of being above the law thanks to BitLocker’s technical protection, you’ll realize that it is a serious benefit.
4. Don’t worry about your data: Another good thing with hard-drive encryption is that if, for some reason, Windows doesn’t want to start on your PC, then you won’t be able to use Knoppix to recover your data. How is that good? Well, you won’t have to learn how to recover your data by using Knoppix. You can actually save a lot of time by not having to learn Knoppix: if you loose your Windows, you loose your data. No need to worry about then anymore
5. Internet Explorer 8: Windows 7 comes with IE8 so you won’t have to upgrade your older version of IE. And if you don’t use Firefox, then you won’t have to download and install it.

Ok it enough or I’ll get mad!

Now lets consider two scenarios: 1) if you’re using Windows XP and run a strong multi-core PC, 2) If you use Vista with a multi-core PC. In these two scenarios, Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor will most probably tell you that you can switch to Windows 7. Why? Because all it does is to check if your system has the minimum requirements or not. If it has, then the Upgrade Advisor will ‘advise you’ to go for an upgrade. The point with this article is to do the analysis that Windows 7 upgrade Advisor will most probably not do for the above scenarios. Let’s now take a look at these scenarios.

Windows XP

If you are in this category, chances are that you 1) didn’t switch to Vista because you couldn’t gain anything from it or 2) that the software you were using weren’t compatible. If you are in the first category, you might forget about Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor because you are going to ask yourself the same question again: what is the real gain with Windows 7? And guess what: the answer is going to be the same than for Vista. Now, if you stick to Windows XP because of software compatibility, then the problem is not really solved. You’ll need Windows XP mode which is a Virtual PC solution that is going to slow you down, especially if you are using a high-end 3D graphic design software. And when it comes to gaming, this Virtual PC patch is not going to do you any good. My advice: Stay with XP.

Windows Vista

I don’t know why you did this move, but you did it: you are using Vista. It’s ok, every body makes mistakes. I have actually made the mistake and I’m really regretting it. What kills me is Vista’s memory cashing management. The idea behind this concept is that unused memory should be avoided at any cost. To make things more ‘efficient’, Vista used a ’super-intelligent’ algorithm that ‘understands’ which application you are going to use (single quotes indicate sarcasm). Everything works just fine until you do something wrong, i.e. using something the algorithm thought you didn’t want to use! All of a sudden, system gets slow because of a lot of dumping on hard-drive.

This problem is ’solved’ in Windows 7 with a brilliant idea: leaving some memory unused in case the algorithm makes mistakes! (of course, Microsoft shows great humility by admitting that it’s algorithm can’t fully read the user’s mind) While this ‘ingenious’ improvement is going to decrease the number of times your system goes into dumping mode, it is not going to completely solve the problem because there will always be some unnecessary cached memory that will have to be freed (and thus dumped on HD) to have it used for something else. Still, my advice is to switch to Windows 7 because you’ll be going for a lesser evil. Of course, you have all the right in the world to curse against Microsoft for taxing you like this.

Conclusion

The point with this article is to question the reflex to automatically upgrade to the next version of Windows. For me, paying for a new version of Windows is like getting a second mortgage on your house every time you paint it. If it’s still the same house with the same foundation and everything, then why do you have to refinance when only new paint is applied? Your reflex will be to pay for the new paint only, right?

What kills me is that with every release of Windows, we need to have an upgrade of the hardware also. Again, with the house analogy, it’s like changing the foundation every time you want to change room color. How many radical novelties that really need stronger computing platform has Windows introduced since Windows XP? None!

The proof of this allegation lies in Linux operating system. You can perform the same tasks that you can do on Windows, only you don’t need a high end PC. How is that possible?