Microsoft’s chief software architect Bill Gates took centre stage at last week’s software developer day in London in a bid to convince UK software developers to stick with Microsoft’s roadmap, even though Longhorn, its next generation operating system, is two to three years away.
Microsoft’s Longhorn Platform Promises to Remove Middleware
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Microsoft promises to eliminate third party software…
I think your right! Where will this take us?
That depends… where do you want to go today?
Funny, back to square one!
“Longhorn, its next generation operating system, is two to three years away.”
Longhorn is starting to look like the horizon. No matter
how much we move forward in time, it’s always “two to three
years away” …
They could just as well put a little sign that says “Longhorn
is not ready yet. Come back tomorrow.” and leave it there
forever.
A thin-client architecture has the advantage of lower management costs because all software and user data is stored on a central server.
Welcome to the Unix timesharing model, Microsoft!
lol….maybe SCO can sue MS next?
Yeah, Longhorn is sounding more and more like a great way to lock people into their product. But I dooubt 3rd party software will be totally squeezed out. 3rd party apps will still be around but not not like the industry has now – its what is/will be running them that you have to show concern over.
What exactly is the middleware Bill Gates is talking about? Sorry that I’m ignorant about Windows. I don’t use it (very often.) Is the point that data is going to become harder to tie to a specific application, because of XML, and WinSQL, and that the interface for applications to access data is going to be unified?
“Gates said, “Of all the middleware [used today] the only one that will exist is the high-end transactional database. Everything else will be built into the operating system.””
Which of course means two distinct things:
1. its either My[Micro$oft] way or the highway,
2. My[Micro$oft] was is portected by software copyrights, so bugger off!
Either way, there is going to be a lot less innovation, interoperability and compatibility, and eitherway, a *LOT* of people are going to be beta ginuea pigs for Longhorn.
I think the removal of middleware underlines what Middleware was. Middleware in MS speak seems to be whole lot of OS components that weren’t really available in bare bones Windows. Middleware came with other MS applications so it wasn’t really a standard part of the OS. (This means that for example Office essentially extended the OS).
What he seems to be saying now is that MS will release its full suite of components as part of the OS to be used by any developer.
I must say I kinda like the analogy of “web” based application servers for things like Word processing Apps that someone was hinting Longhorn would use. I can also understand why this technology is largely on the horizon.
I could be thinking like I would if I was on drugs tho…
Without other software? MS did get in trouble for that before right, cause they tied IE in with windows?
What type of middleware he is planning to eliminate? The only type of middleware that I am familiar with is scripting languages such as PHP or Pearl. As I understand it, middleware such as PHP is a server side scripting language that can be used to connect a form on a webpage to a database program such as MySQL. I hope he is not talking about somehow making Windows incompatible with non-Microsoft alternatives such as that. Am I totally misunderstanding what what he means by middleware?
Is he eliminating some other type of middleware that I am not familiar with? He does mention terms such as client, server and .net so I am wondering if perhaps this might at least partially apply to using databases on intranets or internet. What is he talking about?
.NET is a ‘framework’ (much like J2EE), and one of the promises of such a frame work is that you end up with this:
Client (display) <—> Framework (.NET/J2EE) <—> Database
What exactly is Bill G smoking?
The whole *idea* of .NET is to sit between the display (client) and the data (SQL). It *is* a middleware platform.
Perhaps he meant to say, .NET will kill all other middleware.
And who promises us to remove Microsoft? Maybe RMS?
“A thin-client architecture has the advantage of lower management costs because all software and user data is stored on a central server.”
“Welcome to the Unix timesharing model, Microsoft!”
That’s not the “Unix timesharing model”. In fact, that’s not a “timesharing” model at all.