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.

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!

If we look at things from a technology lockin point of view, we’re to admit that it is not so easy. Consumers are used to Windows interface for more than a decade. Although Linux’ user interface is very similar to that of Windows, a lot of people still won’t be able to use it because they have memorized things in Windows. What I mean is that most users don’t ‘understand’ the logic behind the windowing system. They just want to get something done and they memorize how to do it on Windows. These people aren’t going to be able to use Linux even if it is only for browsing. The worst thing is that they are most probably going to own outdated-non-patched version of Windows.

It all seems that going out there and shipping application to people is not always going to be a productivity gain. Let me clarify this statement by taking the example of online shopping. Online shopping works because 1) people save time traveling to different stores, and 2) they can take as much time as they want to to visit all the virtual stores (because they don’t have to pay for travel). Therefore, there is real gain and value in shopping online. But what is not said here is the danger of being intercepted by thieves. Of course this can happen for someone who goes out to buy shoes and gets robs on his way to the store. But there is a difference between buying in the ‘real’ world and buying online. The difference is that most people have learned to deal with real world threats. This is part of our education to take security measures whenever it is needed.

When it comes to the online world, people have not received the proper training to deal with all those threats out there. This means that they were not able to assess the risk correctly. We know that vasts sums of money were made because of widespread adoption of information technology only because the bright side of things have been told to people. “Go on and buy all you can: it’s not like someone can come and rob you on the Internet”. Those who have gained by this widespread adoption have in a sense conspired with hackers who are taking advantage of the situation.

One thing is sure: Google is going to dominate the Internet with tons of web applications to answer everyday software needs. The think is that all these apps are based on the client-server architecture that brings up the issue of the browser-based operating systems. Well guess what, Google Chrome OS is a browser-operating-system. Chrome OS is Google’s passport to dominating this new computing market.

In this new game of web applications, Google has a clear advantage over Microsoft. Google Docs was there long time ago, and Microsoft is just going to release Office for the web. Once a critical mass of people are comfortable with Google Docs, it is going to be pretty hard for Microsoft to force its Online Office product line to the market. If Microsoft’s looses monopoly position in the productivity software market because of the emergence of a new computing platform (smartphones for instance), then why should Google spend effort to have its new browser be compatible with a dying platform?

Well, I’m not so sure if Windows is ever going to disappear from the OS market, especially when PCs are not going to disappear anytime soon. But today, computing is not only about PCs. And that’s exactly what Google is looking for. Google is not going for the PC market with Chrome; its going for an emergin market: smart devices. When it comes to mobile Internet for example, 19% of web traffic comes from mobile devices. In this market, Microsoft’s dominance is very far from its dominance of the PC market. Since Google does not have real chances to grab a bite from the PC market, it is going for the mobile market. For now, all efforts will be in that direction. Windows 7 compatibility will come only with Chrome 5.

It is widely recognized by IT strategy gurus that Windows is Windows’ biggest competitor. Once this non-secure piece of software is sold, its developer has to go for never-ending patches. If no new version of that software is sold before its patching costs catches up with its sales income, it will only be a question of time for things to go real ugly for the software developer. This is precisely where Windows’ competition with itself is such a pain: customers don’t find any reason to change one non-secure version of an OS with another non-secure version of that same OS. After all, patching will go on for ever isn’t it? Why should customers pay for new cycles?

Well, Microsoft found a solutions to this problem: force users to pay for that new version by closing deals with PC manufacturers. This game went successfully on until the release of Windows Vista where people didn’t want to go for the upgrade. Vista was a disaster in many ways, especially in terms of compatibility with existing software applications.

This time, striking a deal with PC manufacturer wasn’t going to be enough. This time, Microsoft would have basically had to strike a deal with every software developer to ship free Vista-compatible upgrades of their products. The costs of such operations was just prohibitive for it to happen. So what happened instead was that PC manufacturers gave the option of having PCs delivered with Windows XP. Microsoft was even forced to extend its support deadline for XP.

Once again, Microsoft will tax users that don’t need to upgrade. This time, it will be called Windows 7 Professional Edition. What has Professional Edition in special? Well it is the cheaper version of Windows 7 that included Windows XP Mode. Yes, you got it right. Compatibility will still be an issue with Windows 7.