Microsoft's CEO Says He Wants to Unify Windows 322
Deathspawner writes A lot of people have never been able to understand the logic behind Microsoft's Windows RT, with many urging the company to kill it off so that it can focus on more important products, like the mainline Windows. Well, this is probably not going to come as a huge surprise, especially in light of mass layoffs announced last week, but Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has said that his company will be working to combine all Windows versions into a unified release by next year.
Re:Death bell tolling for thee.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's a real life car analogy... GM in the 80's "unified" all their drivetrains. The same engines/transmissions were available in the Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Chevrolet, etc. The only differences were in the style, body, and nameplate. It didn't particularly go over well with auto enthusiasts or consumers in general. The GM brands became rather superfluous, and consumers were quite lukewarm to the generic "all-in-one" options for GM cars. GM cars from the 80's are considered to be the worst built and least desirable of the company's history. You don't see any of those models still driving around with classic plates on them. Few consumers wanted them then, even fewer want to preserve them now.
OK MS bashers. (Score:2, Interesting)
I would hope this unification means that there will be suffice emulation built into windows that it will pick the kernel/libs/drivers required by the CPU arch, and userland apps can run in emulation (even if slowly) if they are compiled for the wrong proc. This would be a unified windows, that allows x86 and 64 bit apps run on ARM and vice versa (although the other direction is likely not as useful). And have a usable interface. This may actually be a killer OS. It is the next version after a bad one!
Re:Death bell tolling for thee.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I think/hope you misunderstand. Where Ballmer really wanted to have one Windows to rule them all, with one crappy UI on all of them, I'm hopeful Nadella is talking more of a unified base with UI adjustments/differences as needed for each device type. You can have a unified release of the base OS with one style interface for tablets, another for desktops, and possibly another for servers. Windows Server has been doing this for a while, with some versions coming with full UI and others with just the CLI. They're a unified release - they come out at the same time and use the same base, but there are different UIs available, similar to one release of Slackware coming with multiple window managers and it being the user's choice which one to use (if any).
So, to give people their "bad car analogy" it's like selling an International DT466 engine in a school bus, a semi tractor, a very large pickup truck, a combine, and a tractor. It's the same engine ("unified release"), but the user picks the chassis/body appropriate for their need. If Microsoft can successfully pull that off, it will be a big win for both the company and consumers.
bulllllshit (Score:3, Interesting)
Server 2012 already looks like Windows 8. (Score:5, Interesting)
I had to use Windows Server 2012 for the first time a few days ago. Jesus Fucking Christ, I had no idea they had brought the Windows 8 Metro Hipster UI over to their server line of OSes. I couldn't belive it. It was damn near impossible to use.
Those are the only two Windows OSes that people actually use. It looked to me like they have already been fully unified. Both Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8 are equally impossible to use effectively.
I know I'm not expected to RTFA... (Score:4, Interesting)
The third link is not actually a link, since the <a> tag is missing the href attribute. I wanted to check what the CEO actually said, since "unify" could mean a lot of things.
Are they going for x86-64 only, killing the ARM-based WIndows RT, as Hot Hardware is reporting? They'd still have to keep ARM support for Windows Mobile. Perhaps they should have put Windows Mobile plus some tablet extensions on the low-budget tablets, that would have fit people's expectations a lot better.
Are they going for a single code base? In that case there would be multiple products created from that code base, so that doesn't tell us anything about the fate of Windows RT or any other specific products.
Are they going for a single product named Windows? While I think it would be good to drop the artificial home/pro/ultimate differentiation, having a different Windows for client and server use is still useful. Although that could be handled by having a different default configuration rather than an entirely different product.
Re:Best Wishes ! (Score:4, Interesting)
As a practical matter, Linux is the unified Unix. Or as unified as its a-gonna get.
Linux Mint 17 (Score:5, Interesting)
How about natively booting Linux Mint 17 and putting 7 in Virtualbox if you must have this POS.
Microsoft's strategy summed up in one link (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Server 2012 already looks like Windows 8. (Score:5, Interesting)
Wait until you have to REMOTELY administer the beast.
The active areas in the corners of the screen function on the "Maybe" principle (Maybe it'll work, Maybe it won't.) So if you don't clutter up your desktop like thousands of idiots do, and stick umpty-bajillion shortcuts on your taskbar, there are times when, if the RDP+Metro session just "ain't feelin' it" and becomes a useless mess as you try to click around to get it to work.
So yourself a favor NOW and install a Start Menu replacement. You'll thank yourself later.
I've been steering clients clear of Windows 8 and Server 2012 for nearly 2 years now.
If Nadella fucks the next-gen stuff up and continues with "Tablet Interface 4 Every1", I'm going to be converting a bunch of clients off Windows and onto VMWare and Linux with some form of locked down VM solution. Because that'll be easier and cheaper than the Metro interface retraining costs for my clients.
Re:Best Wishes ! (Score:3, Interesting)
Unify the OS, but not the UIs (Score:4, Interesting)
So many negative comments here... as if people think that a unified OS must also mean a unified UI.
A single core codebase for the OS will have a few problems with performance on different hardware, but that is a separate discussion... and who expects Microsoft stuff to run quickly anyway?
However, incorporating a different UI for each target device means that you should not need to see the craptastic Metro UI on a desktop system or workstation, while touchscreen and small screen systems are not compromised by a need to develop elements for discrete keyboard and mouse input.
Re:Server 2012 already looks like Windows 8. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Best Wishes ! (Score:4, Interesting)
No, not really. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... [youtube.com]
When you decide it's time to "unify" a single product, clearly you've made a serious, long-running mistake.
Having a dozen different versions of a single product is just a short-term way to milk a few more dimes out of your customers, and has a pretty severe long-term cost. It's most lucritive in software though, because it doesn't cost a penny more to manufacture the $300 version than the $100 version once you're finished with development. If it were a car for example, that leather interior is going to cost more to produce. But those "better bits" are free to produce. So it's creme, pure profit.
And eventually the customers get pissed. Which is OK if your'e not in it for the long haul. Which unfortunately is what Windows is. Bad match.