WINDOWS 2000: Over the past few years Microsoft has been focusing on the product line currently known as Windows 2000. Windows 2000 is an extension of the Windows NT product, which was itself a deviation of the original OS/2 codebase developed jointly by Microsoft and IBM in the mid 1980s. Windows 2000 is available in four versions: a workstation, two server products, and a high-traffic Unix competitor (still in development as this is being written). There currently is no consumer version of Windows 2000, although one was being developed until late in 1999 when Microsoft finally canned it because of software compatibility issues. The current placeholder for a consumer version of Windows is Windows 98 SE [see below]. WHISTLER & MARS: Microsoft set out with two development plans to follow Windows 2000; another server-type system code-named Odyssey and a consumer level operating system known as Neptune that was supposed to be based on NT's pre-2000 codebase. Microsoft recently announced that the development of those two projects had been combined meaning that any future versions of Windows descending from 2000 will include a consumer system; that makes it easier for Microsoft's own OS developers as well as outside software developers who have been doing work for both the NT and the somewhat incompatible 9X codebases for many many years. The combined development of Odyssey and Neptune was given the code-name Whistler, which just happens to also be the code for a voice-recognition product also in development. While Microsoft denies any connection, it is highly unlikely they would have development teams working on two high profile projects with the same name at the same time. In other words, the next versions of Windows after 2000 will have some form of integrated voice recognition capabilities. It could be as minor as the password voice recognition present in recent releases of the Macintosh OS, or as significant as the full-blown voice-navigation present in OS/2. The same week Microsoft announced that change in development paths, it also sent notice to beta testers that the next major revision of Internet Explorer, then known as Haley, would be rebadged as Mars and delayed indefinitely. Considering the timing of that announcement, it isn't much of a stretch to assume that the delay is related to those changes in the development path of Windows. According to rumors and leaks that we have read, the next version of IE will be much more a part of Windows than the current iterations that were integrated through artificial means just to aide Microsoft's legal defense. In fact, the next version of Internet Explorer may not be a browser at all, but instead a total displacement of Windows' user interface. Several years ago Microsoft gave public displays of a concept operating system that looked like the then-proprietary MSN online service, with links instead of icons, pages instead of folders or directories, and a page of scrolling information instead of a desktop. It was a revision of the much-hated ActiveDesktop functions included with Internet Explorer 4.0, only it would be a replacement for the GUI instead of a supplement of it. In that concept, even locally stored applications were launched from hyperlinks instead of icons, which leads us to the next step in Microsoft's plan. The next move would do even more to remove distinctions between PC and Internet by having users load their applications from the Internet instead of a local drive. It at least explains why Microsoft has spent over $10 billion since 1997 investing in broadband Internet services and application service providers that host software remotely. The next version of Microsoft Office will be designed specifically for remote hosting, and Microsoft already has Web services like Hotmail to fill in the gaps when applications like Outlook Express disappear - as they most certainly will have to do in order for this plan to move forward. Remotely hosted applications solve a problem Microsoft has had for years with software piracy, used software reselling, and customers who refuse to register applications. It would also provide a way for the company to charge monthly licensing fees for its software instead of the current flat fee charged at the time of purchase. The idea of using a browser as an operating system or at least as a platform was first created by Netscape more than five years ago. In the antitrust trial that was cited as one reason why Microsoft felt Netscape posed such a significant threat to its OS dominance, since a browser communicating directly with the hardware (as future versions of IE may well do) would eliminate the need for Windows. Diskless computers loading applications from a central server isn't an original idea either; that concept dates back to the days when workstations without disks or processors hooked to central mainframes on local networks. Sun Microsystems recently attempted to bring back that same basic idea with the 'network computer', a product Microsoft has mercilessly attacked for several years. But now that they control almost every broadband Internet access service and application hosting company, Microsoft is embracing the idea as if it were their own (something that we may have seen before somewhere). Widespread acceptance of Internet/desktop integration could eventually lead to a Windows-only Internet, especially if Microsoft's Web-OS has proprietary tags that aren't compatible with other browser or operating systems. If an e-commerce site has to add certain things to its site to take advantage of features in Windows, and those added things result in the site not working with Opera or Netscape Communicator, then the site will cater to Windows' 85-90% marketshare at the inconvenience of anyone not using Microsoft's system. That would reduce the usefulness of alternative operating systems and eventually drive some Microsoft competitors out of business. WINDOWS 98 & MILLENNIAL EDITION: The product known as Windows 98, or Windows 98 Second Edition as the last release was badged, has its roots in systems created in the early 1970's. At that time, the only widely-used computer operating system was Unix. Digital Research founder Gary Kildall created a Unix derivative called CP/M to run on the small hobbyist computer kits that had just started becoming popular. CP/M was, in turn, cloned by several companies - most notably Seattle Computer Products. SCP's CP/M derivative was called 86-DOS or QDOS until Microsoft purchased it in 1980, then licensed the operating system to IBM as MS-DOS. MS-DOS rode the IBM personal computer's popularity for years, finally establishing itself as the dominant PC operating system. After working with IBM on DOS's successor, OS/2 [see above], Microsoft felt that IBM had too much control over the finished product, so they created an OS/2 competitor than ran on top of DOS. That glorified DOS shell was badged Windows, but the Windows of that time had very little resemblance to the Windows familiar to us today. That first DOS shell was followed by the little-remembered Windows 2.0 and then by Windows 3 and 3.1. It took three tries to finally succeed, but with Windows 3 and 3.1 Microsoft had another dominant OS. Windows 95 was released in August 1995 after several years of development, and it too broke sales records and cemented Microsoft's dominance not just as an OS vendor but as a software giant - a force to be reckoned with no matter what industry a company is in. But 95 still had a dark secret locked inside, as it still technically was a DOS shell with a complete version of DOS required to run. Microsoft managed to hide that DOS layer for the most part, but it was all too obvious when software crashed due to conflicts with the older hidden code. 95 was followed almost three years later by Windows 98, a product innovative only by the sheer audacity required to call it an upgrade. Windows 98 finished what 95 started, tying Microsoft's Internet Explorer to the operating system by artificial means. Microsoft's only reasons for that were to exterminate competing browsers and avoid legal prosecution because of an earlier agreement with the government not to bundle IE with Windows. 98 was succeeded by Windows 98 Second Edition, or SE, which was even less of an upgrade to 98 than 98 was to 95. Microsoft has long promised to retire the 9X codebase in favor of a consumer version of Windows based on NT/2000, but so far those plans have fallen through. One final operating system based on Windows 9X will be released this May. That system, Windows Millennial Edition (Windows Me), will finally do away with DOS compatibility but retains most of the old MS-DOS code present in Windows 95 and 98 - resulting in a system that looks less like a DOS shell but still acts like one. Windows Me is expected to be the last in the series started with CP/M and DOS, but if the consumer version of Whistler is delayed or has a significant amount of incompatibility, the thing could pop up again in Microsoft's future.

Tuesday, 22-Aug-2006 22:37:59 EDT