ITNews

(credit: The New York Times)

Microsoft Windows has put on a lot of weight over the years says The New York Times posting by Randall Stross, Windows Could Use a Rush of Fresh Air.

Beginning as a thin veneer for older software code, it has become an obese monolith built on an ancient frame. Adding features, plugging security holes, fixing bugs, fixing the fixes that never worked properly, all while maintaining compatibility with older software and hardware — is there anything Windows doesn’t try to do?

Painfully visible are the inherent design deficiencies of a foundation that was never intended to support such weight. Windows seems to move an inch for every time that Mac OS X or Linux laps it.

The best solution to the multiple woes of Windows is starting over. Completely. Now.

The posting goes on to say

In some crucial ways, however, Microsoft would enjoy advantages in developing its own “Windows OS X,” as we might call it, that Apple did not: the power of today’s quad-core machines and sophisticated virtualization software would allow older software applications and hardware peripherals to be used indefinitely with little or no performance penalty, making a clean start far easier for customers to accept.

A MONOLITHIC operating system like Windows perpetuates an obsolete design. We don’t need to load up our machines with bloated layers we won’t use.

Thank you Randall Stross for summing up the state of Windows. Unfortunately, as long as cash flow keeps Microsoft in the black, I don’t think Microsoft will deviate from the Windows core.

I don’t think Microsoft has designed an operating system from scratch, except for a research exercises that produced “Singularity.” DOS was purchased from Seattle Computer Company, 16-bit Windows had DOS at the core, and 32-bit Windows NT and its siblings, were derived from the Digital Equipment Corporation VMS and RSX-11 operating systems.

Writing an operating system and surviving in the market place, is an extremely difficult thing to do. Operating system programming is most likely the most difficult kind of programming there is, and it takes years to mature the code. Take Unix for an example.

Unix is approaching 40 years of age. It was designed to be portable, multi-tasking, and multi-user. The surviving siblings demonstrate that the design is still a winner.

Common contemporary operating systems, except Microsoft Windows, are derived from Unix. This includes Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris, HP/UX, AIX, Free BSD, Open BSD, etc…

Microsoft looks to be stuck with Windows until they eat crow and buy into the Unix universe. I think they would be committing a slow and painful suicide if they try to go it alone.

…John

In a presentation at a Gartner-sponsored conference in Las Vegas, analysts Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald said Microsoft is overburdened by nearly two decades of legacy code and not responded to the market and faces serious competition that will make Windows moot unless the software developer acts. Never the less, they are reported to be optimistic about Windows’ revival.

Joe Wilcox isn’t. His Microsoft Watch posting Broken Windows Can’t Be Fixed disagrees with those thinking Windows can be fixed.

It’s the problem of legacy and Microsoft’s ridiculous integration strategy. Windows is a fat client for a thin world. There’s no future place for the desktop client. Computing is shifting from the desktop to the device and server. Windows, particularly Vista, has too much middle-age girth to dance with the lithely crowd.

Operating systems are commodity products, and no wishful thinking by Microsoft will change that. Commodity status is one reason why Microsoft maintains its Windows monopoly. In the 1990s, Microsoft reached monopoly because Windows provided a platform from which so many third parties could make money. The company maintained the monopoly, at least since the turn of the century, because of the operating systems’ declining importance. Windows was a checklist item for consumers or IT organizations, something that came with new PCs.

The supporting ecosystem remains significant, but not the commodity operating system. Most businesses and consumers don’t buy operating systems. OS decisions are predicated by applications or hardware.

Microsoft could have maintained a happy, commodity-driven sales situation, if not for the Web 2.0 platform’s success and Windows Vista’s failure. The Web 2.0 platform and Vista are juxtaposition. Web applications tend to be light and simple, with complexity pulled to the server and new features easily made available; service updates go out to all users instantly. The Web platform can deliver up applications to most any client—anytime and anywhere.

By contrast, Vista dramatically increases operating system complexity and hardware requirements. But, with the increasing business and consumer shift to mobile devices, the market demands less complexity and lower-powered hardware. Microsoft’s inability to offer Windows Vista for low-powered laptops is example of the problem’s size. Vista demands too much. Something else: Deployment complexity plagues Windows and many supporting applications, particularly in the enterprise.

Windows is now in an inevitable state of decline that can only accelerate as people use more powerful, smaller devices. Web 2.0 is ideally suited to lower-powered, highly-functional mini-laptops and smart phones. Vista is not. When I say, “inevitable state of decline,” I don’t mean immediate. Windows will have a place as a commodity operating system for many years yet. But real computing and informational relevance has shifted to the device, server, IP network and anytime, anywhere access on anything.

I agree with Joe. The rest of his posting delivers more details. Give it a read if you’re interested in the ongoing story of Microsoft slipping from its zenith.

…John

The Microsoft Watch posting 10 Ways Microsoft Can Make Windows 7 Lucky lays out a 10 step Vista recovery program for Microsoft. Here are my reactions to the 10 steps.

1. Windows 7 has to be a whole lot better than Windows Vista.

Better doesn’t mean tons more features.

Any process requiring more than two mouse clicks is too complicated. Every Wizard is unnecessary. Windows 7 must wring the complexity out of the user interface. Microsoft can make Windows 7 more compelling by radically—and I mean RADICALLY—changing the UI. The old motif has got to go, and its replacement shouldn’t be one motif but several.

Featureitus seems to be a Microsoft marketing mainstay. Deviating from it will require changing the culture, and we all know how extremely difficult that is.

2. Windows 7 must generate a compelling hardware refresh cycle.

Microsoft’s fundamental development philosophy should be: one operating system to rule them all. If Apple can put Mac OS X derivatives on other hardware, such as iPhone, surely Microsoft can do something similar with Windows 7 (I’m not referring to a separate, embedded product).

Mac OS X is built on an a venerable UNIX architecture that has morphed countless times in the last 39 years to meet the needs of countless products, while still retaining its core designs and philosophies. I think history tells us the design of Microsoft Windows lacks this ability.

3. Windows 7 should go back to basics.

The browser has got to come out of the operating system. Internet Explorer has caused usability and security problems for far too long.

Fat chance. Doing so would be admitting to a major faux pas. Something that seems to be alien to Microsoft culture.

4. Call it Windows 7 Core.

The starting point must be the core, the kernel. Supposedly, Microsoft has made a fresh start with the Windows 7 kernel. From a usability and security perspective, that’s exactly what Microsoft should do. But Windows 7 has to be more by being less: It has to be the kernel, and to developers and other partners almost nothing more. Microsoft should even consider separately branding the Windows 7 kernel.

I think backwards compatibility hacks are the bane of Windows. On one hand Microsoft marketing seems to demand them, even though black hats use them as avenues of exploitation. Taking them out or drastically munging them raises customer hackles, as witnessed by some customer reactions to Vista.

If Microsoft does decide to start fresh, my advice would be to build on something that works, like a UNIX thingy. Don’t even think about doing it yourself, ever again. Operating systems are the most difficult things to program, and take a very long time to get “right.”

5. Windows 7 should be familiar.

Windows Vista was too much like the disastrous Windows Me II.

Learn from Max OS X.

6. One Windows 7 version is enough.

From the Windows 7 Core, OEMs should be able to customize the operating system for specific hardware and usage roles.

Gee, just like a UNIX thingy.

8. Windows 7 must give much, through sync.

Synchronization is the other killer UI, and it’s essential to fulfilling Ozzie’s mesh vision. Windows 7 needs a synchronization engine bound to the IP stack. This sync platform would become the hub for data exchange regardless of format or service. It’s a tough challenge and maybe even beyond Microsoft resources for Windows 7.

O.K. to what ever this mesh vision thing is. Wouldn’t want to stop someone from being “innovative.”

9. Windows Vista Capable means backward compatibility.

I’ve suggested some radical changes to Windows that simply are unworkable because of backward compatibility considerations. It’s time Microsoft put all that virtualization technology to good use. The company should radically rearchitect the operating system, while using virtualization to provide backward compatibility to Windows Vista and XP. Then the company can put all those Windows Vista Capable stickers to good use, on Windows 7 PCs.

Cool idea. Who knows, maybe building on a UNIX thingy and virtualizing sins of the past, may be a way for Microsoft to get back on its horse.

10. Windows 7 security features must increase usability by decreasing complexity.

Microsoft’s approach to security is fundamentally flawed.

I think the black hat underworld would whole heartedly agree.

Bottom Line

The author of the posting, Joe Wilcox, is making some intelligent suggestions. I doubt Microsoft will listen to such things until it is in really deep yogurt and hurting. Until then, marketing weenie greed will continue guiding the good ship Microsoft.

…John

I chuckled at the Inquirer posting last month Dealing with Ballmer is like dealing with an estate agent, over the remarks of an EC regulator dealing with the recent judgment against Microsoft.

Neelie Kroes revealed how in meetings she found him more slippery than a well-greased eel.

She said that she could remember at least four times when, if you were naïve, you could have thought everything was fixed.

However, it turned out that nothing was ever fixed and Microsoft was not even trying to “deliver and implement.”

In short, negotiating with Steve ’sounds of silence’ Ballmer was like dealing with an estate agent who is trying to convince you that the kitchen really is not falling into a Victorian cesspit and will be cheap to repair.

Unfortunately for the Vole, Kroes really thinks that Steve is the sort of person where you have to count your fingers after shaking hands. This might cause a few problems for Microsoft when it comes to the EU deciding about any take overs of Yahoo.

Today over breakfast I read the eWeek story “Steve Ballmer On Vista, virtualization and open vows”. Baller was interview by Senior Editor Peter Galli. (sorry, there doesn’t seem to be a link to the article on eWeek.com).

I was struck by the responses beginning with “Well,…” An insurance adjuster advised me some time ago to not believe anything after the “Well,…” I don’t. This sage advice has proven itself again and again.

Steve Ballmer has proven his marketing genius over the years. I think Microsoft would be just a shadow of itself if it weren’t for Ballmer’s marketing talents.

In the end, I think Ballmer always gets his pound of flesh. Late last month during a conference call billed as “significant, ” Steve Ballmer and others divulged some details of opening some API’s and protocols. See Microsoft Opens Kimono - Somewhat.

Oh, about that pound of flesh. In the interview Steve says

Open-source developers can write software that uses those patents. Their customers, the users of the products, must get a license. The developers themselves don’t need to get a patent license.

Slick, Steve. Slick.

…John

Some times banks just don’t get it. The CNET posting Windows-based cash machines ‘easily hacked’ is an example.

Up to 90 percent of the ATMs in the U.K. could be at risk from these attacks as they rely on desktop PC technology–usually Intel hardware and Windows operating systems–linked to other machines, some connected to the Internet, in the bank’s network, according to experts.

Beware when you next step up to an ATM machine.

(Credit: TechCrunch)

Here are a few things that may be lurking behind the facade.

… only the personal identification number was encrypted when information was sent from a U.S. ATM to networked bank computers. The card numbers, card expiration dates, transaction amounts, and account balances were clearly readable in plain text to anybody intercepting the data as it traveled through the network.

I can see it now. Microsoft’s patch Tuesday becomes a bank holiday.

“An ATM becomes like a PC with attached devices–it has to be kept up-to-date with hot fixes and patches. It is a much more complex beast, and the security aspects of that need to be at the forefront of a bank’s mind.”

De-evolution in action.

… the stability of Windows-based ATMs was worse than that of their OS/2-based predecessors, saying some ATMs suffered downtime of up to 30 percent.

Welcome script kiddies to the world of sloppy banking.

… the shift among ATMs to modern PC infrastructure means it now requires only minimal programming knowledge to hack ATM machines successfully once access has been gained to its system.

“If you are a programmer and you have some programming experience, then it is a cakewalk. If an exploit will work on a home or office computer then it will work on these ATMs,” …

Password, what password.

Researchers from IRM were even able to unlock and clear out the safes in two out of three U.K. cabinet ATMs, opening the safe using a default key code they obtained from a safe manual online. They also reset the cabinet ATMs’ software using a piece of wire jammed into the receipt slot, giving them access to the engineering mode where they could control the machine.

What part of basic network security 101 don’t bank technocrats get?

… the most effective way to protect against these new threats is to use a multifunction device with routing, firewall, intrusion detection system/intrusion prevention system and VPN (virtual private network) capabilities, positioned in front of, and protecting, the ATM network.

Well duh!

I don’t think ATM stupidity is unique to the U.K. So, beware when you next step up to an ATM machine, anywhere.

…John