Editorial Archive

"Microsoft wants us to believe that Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player are tied so deeply in the OS that they cannot be removed. As middleware they are good things, but so is DirectX, and Microsoft doesn't say that can't be removed from the operating system. Windows is far more modular than Microsoft wants to admit to the court. Microsoft has grown to the point that they no longer need to compete, and the only way for them to survive as a company is to stop competing and start sharing. If something doesn't happen to change Microsoft's behavior, the backlash against them and other corporate giants will send proprietary software and countless tech jobs into obsolescence." Read the editorial at Kuro5hin.

I can remember seeing my first calculator in the 1970s. It was shown to us by a teacher in school. Up to then all we had seen were mechanical adding machines. The calculator amazed us, it was silent, instantaneous, and even had a square root key, a function I never saw any adding machine do. The teacher explained that soon every home would have a computer. I couldn't believe it, computers were huge, and filled rooms. Even a home computer would take up a living room. He was right though, by 1977 we had home computers that weren't much bigger than a keyboard.

I just should begin by saying that this article is different from the others. While my other articles can be quite useful to aid you in the design or purchase of your next computer system, this article is simply a fun look at things to come.

Just some days ago Apple requested input from PC users or from Mac users coming from the PC world. They asked for some input regarding what a PC user would like to see on Apple's products. While I am already a Mac user, I would like to see the following. If it doesn't happen (as it hasn't), I intend to do it myself with some smart friends.

On March 13, a special report published on News.com site described the revival of an old Microsoft initiative. That News.com report said: "Microsoft is replacing the plumbing of its Windows operating system with technology borrowed from its SQL Server database software. Currently, documents, Web pages, e-mail files, spreadsheets and other information are stored in separate, mostly incompatible software. The new technology will unify storage in a single database built into Windows that's more easily searchable, more reliable, and accessible across corporate networks and the Internet."

It is not just me. Other analysts and journalists claim that what Sun is trying to achieve with their lawsuit against Microsoft is too much, and in places does not make sense at all. In this editorial, I discuss Sun's lawsuit point by point, and evaluate how sensible (or not) it is.

Totalitarianism. Urban pathology. The death of creativity. These are the fears that keep John Perry Barlow awake at night. The co-founder of the 12-year-old Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) tries not to be bleak. But he sincerely worries that Microsoft will usurp e-commerce and AOL Time Warner will seize media, and the two forces will extinguish dissenting voices in a "diabolical" plot to own the economy and the human mind. "I worry that the Net is closing. I would say that (Microsoft e-commerce initiatives) .Net and HailStorm are huge threats and really diabolical. The problem is that hardly anybody recognizes it because they don't know what .Net is or how it works. They don't know that Microsoft is trying to own all of your transactions, literally."

"Given the speed at which technology changes, the world is much different than it was even five years ago. Consider this, for example: By the end of the year, two platforms--J2EE and .Net--will essentially control the programming languages market. J2EE already commands large market share, while Microsoft has moved all of its languages over to .Net." Read the rest of the editorial at ZDNews.

"What advocates of 'theme' or 'skinning' software fail to realize is that OS consistency is only truly realized when an entire platform is universally similar. As computers continue to dominate an increasing number of daily activities, it is ever more important that operating systems adopt the most idealistic standards to allow their users to be as productive as possible. In the world of user interface design, consistency is king. A consistent user interface not only can make a product more intuitive, but also can help users be significantly more productive. Unfortunately, the latest trend in 'user-friendliness' is allowing users to modify the interface of an operating system extensively by applying 'skins' or 'themes.'" Read the interesting analysis on the phenomenon of skinning at OSOpinion.

"You've heard of killer apps? How about an app killer? This is what voice recognition has become over the years, because for the most part, it doesn't work. I see no evidence that it ever will, at least not in the sense that we can achieve true voice dictation capability. What annoys everyone most about voice recognition is that it almost works. This is the problem. When something almost works, developers continue with the same thinking that got them to "almost," rather than starting over with new ideas. We are now stuck in a blind alley." Who else? Dvorak is hitting the nail in the head again.

I made some price comparisons this evening following the release of the new iMac. So, here is what I discovered, by trying to build an "iMac"-like PC (I targetted the configuration of the middle range iMac which sells at $1500), consulting prices from PriceWatch & PriceGrabber. The mentioned prices are retail and the individual components probably have costed even less for Apple, but I am going to overlook that and give the benefit to Apple. Update: Some good comments and further clarifications on the subject, can be found here. Update2: And speaking of eMachines (whose quality is not bad, neither the company is out of business (yet)), check out their brand new systems and prices. They even prepare for sale a NorthWood P4 system at 2Ghz. NorthWood is the new P4 CPU model which is much faster than its P4 predessesor at the same clock speed.

I'm writing this opinion piece on the eve of perhaps Apple's most hyped MacWorld Expo ever. TIME Canada has already pre-released an article about the next-generation flat-panel iMac machines, complete with pictures of the it, its industrial designer and Apple CEO Steve Jobs. While the complete picture has yet to be painted (and will be in the morning when Jobs reveals the specifications during his keynote speech), I'm starting to believe that Apple feels that "innovation" and "revolution" are a matter of hardware and user interface aesthetics. Where Apple used to pave the way for new technologies, programming methodologies and user interfaces, they remain stuck in a rut of their own creation, bound to re-create a lot of the same mistakes that caused them to lose the majority of their market share and relevance to Microsoft in the 1990's. E-I-C's note: The article was written before the actual MacWorld Keynote took place.

In the year 2000, some pundits suggested the growing enthusiasm about open source was destined to give out. Once economic conditions returned to pre-dot-com levels, they reasoned, open source would be seen as a fad, just like the pet rock. The editorial at InfoWorld concludes that "the hype surrounding open source did not survive the year. But open source itself not only survived, it began to thrive in the business world."

There were an amazing number of people (around 300,000) who visited OSNews recently to read Scot Hacker's article on MacOSX. As part of the camp of BeOS refugees, I have been searching for some time for a suitable replacement. Many come close - FreeBSD is fantastic, but still complicated, the new school of Linuxes are very close to ready for me, even Windows XP has come a long way. My x86 machine is pretty fun - it gets a new OS every two weeks or so. But what does that say - that I like variety or that I can't find what I want? I'd suggest most of us still feel that we're missing something - otherwise, why read osnews.com?