Looks like, for Windows, there is finally light at the end of the tunnel. Or it may, in fact, be a freight train coming your way. Midori is interesting not only because it represents the first hint of a post-Windows era, but may also be the herald of the post-localized OS era, as well. Hosted virtualization is taking off in recent years, and while it has yet to see the light of day in consumer markets, rumblings of similarly web-centric OS’s—the “Google OS”—have been going on for quite a while now. The fact is that the majority of computing functions already exist in some form or another either with a web app, or some sort of virtualization software. Ironically, just as HD’s start to be measured in TB’s, we may just end up using them as caches.
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8 comments:
I straight up jacked this post from the SA forums:
http://icloud.com/
Apparently, it's a full-featured operating system that runs through your browser. If you're at school, work, on a business-trip, etc, you can access the same desktop, programs, and settings anywhere. Features:
* Free applications like an office suite
* Secure, backuped file storage
* All friends, documents and applications in the cloud
* Sharing and collaboration in real-time
* XML development tools included - adopt for your needs
* Integrated social community
* Works online and offline
Right now, it's in an invite-only closed beta.
The Google OS type scenario has always been the reason that Microsoft wanted everyone running IE my dad has said since the dawn of the internet.
wow, damn. looks like trouble for one of the startups I was thinking of getting involved in.
I really wanna know when someone decided to call this whole phenomena "cloud computing." i don't see any blond spikes or gigantic swords anywhere.
Also, I used google docs, and to be frank, it sucks. Lemme know when they have an OS that can respond when you click on it in less than a ms plz. kthx.
but windows doesn't even do that; not without going into the registry.
right now, you can virtualize windows in its entirety on some citrix distributions, so it's def doable.
OK, first of all, can we save that headline for stuff I actually wouldn't want to hear? It's more than a stretch in this case, and last time it was a bit misleading. (Slate just did a piece on MS's stupid Mojave experiment; turns out the people involved were just n00bs who were h8ing on Vista but had never used it. Not quite the seasoned MS bashers I am, and of course Microsoft didn't make them install it, or resolve network or driver problems, or anything like that.)
Second, why wouldn't I want to hear this story? I have no problem with what is essentially remote desktopping -- especially since Linux has been a leader in the virtualization and server markets for a while. The problem with the concept, of course, is that doing everything over a network connection sucks ass compared to doing it on your own hardware, and it depends on actually having access to an external network. I don't want ultimate lag while performing simple computing tasks, and I don't think our networks are up to the task of handling the kind of traffic that would be required. There will always be a consumer market for hardware-tied OSes, even if you have to set up a central server in your home and then client terminals as workstations or whatever.
Otherwise, portable OSes (on flash drives or whatever) are probably safer and better-performing than Web-based OSes (with the possible drawback that most require rebooting the comp, but there are ways around that).
Finally, this is good news for anti-Microsoft folks because people are starting to realize that the Windows family doesn't really deserve its market share and are looking for alternatives. The phrase "OS agnosticism" really jumped out at me from the article. That's the idea behind giving a safe, stable OS like Linux to old grannies who can't tell the difference between it and Windows.
and that's just the thing; your typical apps are already at the level of acceptable performance through web-based delivery. while the "hypervisors" people here at gartner like to talk about are still on the upswing and will hit business computing long before consumers catch wind, the tide is already turning. I'm not even sure PC's will be around thirty years down the line; everything is converging on mobile devices, and people who actually need the performance for gaming or heavy graphics processing will have dedicated workstations and consoles for that.
btw, i name under the principal that the news jay doesn't want to hear is precisely the news that jay does want to hear; by not wanting to hear it, you only want to hear it more, and thus there is no duality in hearing and no hearing, only the truth of enlightenment.
mu
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