Interesting NY Times Vista/OSX comparison

[Metrogirl]

Today's New York Times carries an article entitled "Windows is So Slow, but Why?". The article compares the development of Vista and MS' insistence on maintaining backwards compatibility, against Apple's strategy.

 

As XP has remained largely unchanged (bugfixes excepted) in five years, and Apple have exponentially added features to their OS, MS strategy has come into question.

 

In those five years, Apple Computer has turned out four new versions of its Macintosh operating system, beating Microsoft to market with features that will be in Vista, like desktop search, advanced 3-D graphics and "widgets," an array of small, single-purpose programs like news tickers, traffic reports and weather maps.

 

So what's wrong with Microsoft? There is, after all, no shortage of smart software engineers working at the corporate campus in Redmond, Wash. The problem, it seems, is largely that Microsoft's past success and its bundling strategy have become a weakness.

 

The article goes on to question the bloat that will inevitably become incorporated into Vista. Although it's written in NYT's typical journalese, it raises some interesting questions.

[domino]

Someone please help me understand why these so called review sites often point out the whimsical aspects of an Operating System?

 

Granted that they are added features. These widgets, tickers, etc, don't serve any purpose other than bloat. Who would sit at there computer to watch widgets more than 10 minutes a day? Unless you are a corp head that is interested in stock tickers, a bookie that needs real time scores, they usually have a dedicated display to view those. The applications they run far exceeds the tickets and widgets functionality. Traffic reports? Are you kidding? You can use your cell phone to get real time traffic report in your car! Unless you don't have a tele or you don't have a news channel that shows the weather forecast, maybe a weather map widget will serve it's purpose.

 

Do these review sites actually see the amount of resources it takes to run these features and widgets? Sometimes I wonder if they are really qualified to review something other than the "cool effects" of the operating system. If there are no shortage of engineers and human resources, then why are "IT enthusiast" always one step ahead of them?

 

Ps. Metrogirl, the link directs me to a login page, which I do not have access

[Colonel]

Stupid Micro$oft

[Mr. Bond]

Someone please help me understand why these so called review sites often point out the whimsical aspects of an Operating System?

 

Granted that they are added features. These widgets, tickers, etc, don't serve any purpose other than bloat. Who would sit at there computer to watch widgets more than 10 minutes a day? Unless you are a corp head that is interested in stock tickers, a bookie that needs real time scores, they usually have a dedicated display to view those. The applications they run far exceeds the tickets and widgets functionality. Traffic reports? Are you kidding? You can use your cell phone to get real time traffic report in your car! Unless you don't have a tele or you don't have a news channel that shows the weather forecast, maybe a weather map widget will serve it's purpose.

 

Do these review sites actually see the amount of resources it takes to run these features and widgets? Sometimes I wonder if they are really qualified to review something other than the "cool effects" of the operating system. If there are no shortage of engineers and human resources, then why are "IT enthusiast" always one step ahead of them?

 

Ps. Metrogirl, the link directs me to a login page, which I do not have access

 

The problem is Domino, and I've mentioned it before, is that the average computer user is just not as smart as you and me.

 

For regular users, it is, sadly, those "cool effects" and widgets that attract users to the OS in the first place. The lack of these snazzy effects and extra {censored} that bloated the OS was one of the things that scared users away from Linux for a long time. Really, people seem to have become attached to the concept that because it looks alot nicer, it must be better. Take the iPod, as a perfect example. It's sleek, and stylish, and sure as hell will make most people buy it over something like an iRiver or Creative.

 

But really, will most people understand an article looking at the strengths and weeknesses of the Vista kernel compared to Mach-o? Of course not...thus, they focus on the things that will really win new users over.

[domino]

But really, will most people understand an article looking at the strengths and weeknesses of the Vista kernel compared to Mach-o? Of course not...thus, they focus on the things that will really win new users over.

Sorry for derailing the subject Metrogirl.

 

I agree MrBond. Although job for these "review sites" is to inform the users, not entice them with eyecandy. The normal users have become accustomed to looking for the eyecandy because of these "review sites". The normal users read the reviews and look at screen shots before they break out the checkbooks.

 

It would be like some car ad selling all polished wood grained interior, Alpine deck with 50 disk cd changer pumping out 130db of pure pleasure. Leather bucket seats with one of the those back massage thingies, 2.4L engine, gets 15 miles to the gallon, and no GPS System. You get all those features for USD$50,000.

[Metrogirl]

... Ps. Metrogirl, the link directs me to a login page, which I do not have access

 

That's really strange - the link from this forum does indeed produce a login page, but the self-same URL typed directly into my browser goes straight to the article. Edit - problem solved - NYT has a cunning web management system. If you send referrer info and you have cookies blocked, you get the login page. If you come from a blank webpage (i.e. no referrer) and you accept the cookie that NYT sends, you can read the article - but one time only - the second time you try, they read the cookie they set on the first pass and block you unless you have a user ID with them. If you delete the first cookie you can read it again.

 

Here's the text verbatim (NYT - let me know if this violates copyright and I'll remove it):

 

Windows Is So Slow, but Why?

By STEVE LOHR and JOHN MARKOFF

 

Back in 1998, the federal government declared that its landmark

antitrust suit against the Microsoft Corporation was not merely a matter

of law enforcement, but a defense of innovation. The concern was that

the company was wielding its market power and its strategy of bundling

more and more features into its dominant Windows desktop operating

system to thwart competition and stifle innovation.

 

Eight years later, long after Microsoft lost and then settled the

antitrust case, it turns out that Windows is indeed stifling innovation

— at Microsoft.

 

The company's marathon effort to come up with the a new version of its

desktop operating system, called Windows Vista, has repeatedly stalled.

Last week, in the latest setback, Microsoft conceded that Vista would

not be ready for consumers until January, missing the holiday sales

season, to the chagrin of personal computer makers and electronics

retailers — and those computer users eager to move up from Windows XP, a

five-year-old product.

 

In those five years, Apple Computer has turned out four new versions of

its Macintosh operating system, beating Microsoft to market with

features that will be in Vista, like desktop search, advanced 3-D

graphics and "widgets," an array of small, single-purpose programs like

news tickers, traffic reports and weather maps.

 

So what's wrong with Microsoft? There is, after all, no shortage of

smart software engineers working at the corporate campus in Redmond,

Wash. The problem, it seems, is largely that Microsoft's past success

and its bundling strategy have become a weakness.

 

Windows runs on 330 million personal computers worldwide. Three hundred

PC manufacturers around the world install Windows on their machines;

thousands of devices like printers, scanners and music players plug into

Windows computers; and tens of thousands of third-party software

applications run on Windows. And a crucial reason Microsoft holds more

than 90 percent of the PC operating system market is that the company

strains to make sure software and hardware that ran on previous versions

of Windows will also work on the new one — compatibility, in computing

terms.

 

As a result, each new version of Windows carries the baggage of its

past. As Windows has grown, the technical challenge has become

increasingly daunting. Several thousand engineers have labored to build

and test Windows Vista, a sprawling, complex software construction

project with 50 million lines of code, or more than 40 percent larger

than Windows XP.

 

"Windows is now so big and onerous because of the size of its code base,

the size of its ecosystem and its insistence on compatibility with the

legacy hardware and software, that it just slows everything down,"

observed David B. Yoffie, a professor at the Harvard Business School.

"That's why a company like Apple has such an easier time of innovation."

 

Microsoft certainly understands the problem, the need to change and the

potential long-term threat to its business from rivals like Apple, the

free Linux operating system, and from companies like Google that

distribute software as a service over the Internet.

 

In an internal memo last October, Ray Ozzie, chief technical officer,

who joined Microsoft last year, wrote, "Complexity kills. It sucks the

life out of developers, it makes products difficult to plan, build and

test, it introduces security challenges and it causes end-user and

administrator frustration."

 

Last Monday afternoon, James Allchin, the longtime engineering executive

who leads the Vista team, held a meeting with 75 Windows managers and

senior engineers to discuss the status of Vista. On Tuesday morning, Mr.

Allchin met with a handful of his lieutenants and told them of the

decision to push back the consumer introduction, a move that was

announced publicly later that day, after the close of the stock market.

 

Brad Goldberg, a general manager of Windows program management, who

attended the Tuesday morning meeting, said he was not surprised, because

he had been involved in the decision. "But it's a different place than

Microsoft a few years ago would have wound up," he said.

 

Like other Microsoft executives, Mr. Goldberg bristles at the notion

that little innovative work has come out of the Windows group since XP.

In the last five years, he said, Microsoft has released two versions of

the Windows Tablet PC software intended for pen-based notebook

computers, and four versions of Windows Media Center. To combat viruses

plaguing Windows, much of the engineering team focused for 18 months on

fixing security flaws for a downloadable "service pack" in 2004.

 

"The perception that nothing new has come out of the Windows group since

XP is just so far from the truth," Mr. Goldberg said.

 

But last Thursday, Microsoft reorganized the management of its Windows

division. Steven Sinofsky, 40, a senior vice president, was placed in

charge of product planning and engineering for Windows and Windows Live,

a new Web service that lets consumers manage their e-mail accounts,

instant messaging, blogs, photos and podcasts in one site.

 

Mr. Sinofsky, a former technical assistant to Bill Gates, the Microsoft

chairman, was one of the early people in the company to recognize the

importance of the Internet in the 1990's. He comes to the Windows job

from heading Microsoft's big Office division, where he was known for

bringing out new versions of the Office suite — Word, Excel, PowerPoint,

Outlook and other offerings — on schedule every two or three years.

 

The move is seen as an effort to bring greater discipline to the Windows

group. "But this doesn't seem to do anything to address the core Windows

problem; Windows is too big and too complex," said Michael A. Cusumano,

a professor at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology.

 

The Vista delay, Microsoft executives said, was only a matter of a few

more weeks to improve quality further, not attributable to any single

flaw and done to make sure all its industry partners were ready when the

product was introduced. Vista will be ready for large corporate

customers in November, while the consumer rollout is being pushed back

to January 2007.

 

Mr. Allchin conceded in an interview that the decision was "a bit

painful," but he insisted it was the "right thing." Mr. Allchin, 54,

will continue to work on Vista until it ships and then retire, as he

said he would last year.

 

Microsoft will not say so, but antitrust considerations may have played

a role in the decision that Mr. Allchin called the right thing to do. As

part of its antitrust settlement, Microsoft vowed to treat PC makers

even-handedly, after evidence in the trial that Microsoft had rewarded

some PC makers with better pricing or more marketing help in exchange

for giving Microsoft products an edge over competing software.

 

In the last few weeks, Microsoft met with major PC makers and retailers

to discuss Vista. Hewlett-Packard, the second-largest PC maker after

Dell, is a leader in the consumer market. Yet unlike Dell,

Hewlett-Packard sells extensively through retailers, whose orders must

be taken and shelves stocked. That takes time.

 

Hewlett-Packard, according to a person close to the company who asked

not to be identified because he was told the information confidentially,

informed Microsoft that unless Vista was locked down and ready by

August, Hewlett-Packard would be at a disadvantage in the year-end sales

season.

 

Vista was also held up because the project was restarted in the summer

of 2004. By then, it became clear to Mr. Allchin and others inside

Microsoft that the way they were trying to build the new version of

Windows, then called Longhorn, would not work. Two years' worth of work

was scrapped, and some planned features were dropped, like an

intelligent data storage system called WinFS.

 

The new work, Microsoft decided, would take a new approach. Vista was

built more in small modules that then fit together like Lego blocks,

making development and testing easier to manage.

 

"They did the right thing in deciding that the Longhorn code was a

tangled, hopeless mess, and starting over," said Mr. Cusumano of M.I.T.

"But Vista is still an enormous, complex structure."

 

Skeptics like Mr. Cusumano say that fixing the Windows problem will take

a more radical approach, a willingness to walk away from its legacy. One

instructive example, they say, is what happened at Apple.

 

Remember that Steven P. Jobs came back to Apple because the company's

effort to develop an ambitious new operating system, codenamed Copland,

had failed. Mr. Jobs convinced Apple to buy his company Next Inc. for

$400 million in December 1996 for its operating system.

 

It took Mr. Jobs and his team years to retool and tailor the Next

operating system into what became Macintosh OS X. When it arrived in

2001, the new system essentially walked away from Apple's previous

operating system, OS 9. Software applications written for OS 9 would run

on an OS X machine, but only by firing up the old operating system

separately.

 

The approach was somewhat ungainly, but it allowed Apple to move to a

new technology, a more stable, elegantly designed operating system. The

one sacrifice was that OS X would not be compatible with old Macintosh

programs, a step Microsoft has always refused to take with Windows.

 

"Microsoft feels it can't get away with breaking compatibility," said

Mendel Rosenblum, a Stanford University computer scientist. "All of

their applications must continue to run, and from an architectural point

of view that's a very painful thing."

 

It is also costly in terms of time, money and manpower. Where Microsoft

has thousands of engineers on its Windows team, Apple has a lean

development group of roughly 350 programmers and fewer than 100 software

testers, according to two Apple employees who spoke on the condition

that they not be identified.

 

And Apple had the advantage of building on software from university

laboratories, an experimental version of the Unix operating system

developed at Carnegie Mellon University and a free variant of Unix from

the University of California, Berkeley. That helps explain why a small

team at Apple has been able to build an operating system rich in

features with nearly as many lines of code as Microsoft's Windows.

 

And Apple, which makes operating systems that run only on its own

computers, does not have to work with the massive business ecosystem of

Microsoft, with its hundreds of PC makers and thousands of third-party

software companies.

 

That ballast is also Microsoft's great strength, and a reason industry

partners and computer users stick with Windows, even if its size and

strategy slow innovation. Unless Microsoft can pick up the pace,

"consumers may simply end up with a more and more inferior operating

system over time, which is sad," said Mr. Yoffie of the Harvard Business

School.

[dponmac]

Windows runs on 330 million personal computers worldwide. Three hundred

PC manufacturers around the world install Windows on their machines;

thousands of devices like printers, scanners and music players plug into

Windows computers; and tens of thousands of third-party software

applications run on Windows. And a crucial reason Microsoft holds more

than 90 percent of the PC operating system market is that the company

strains to make sure software and hardware that ran on previous versions

of Windows will also work on the new one — compatibility, in computing

terms.

 

Thats excactly why MS doesn't need to focus on how fast they kick out "new features". Their product sells fine just the way it is, because of Hardware compatabilty. Joe Blow can run down to walmart and pick up an e-machine (holding back vomit) for $299, and be out on the internet getting infected before he can say "Legalize Incest!"

 

Apple on the other hand, needs more of a strategy to sell their product. Something that will get the buyer to look past their mid $2000 price tag. So they gotta find another way to get pry Mr. Blow from his cousin/daughter's leg. Answer: Eyecandy.

 

Me? I'll settle for my hackintosh with Vista and OS X, and my good ol cousin peggy sue!!!

[bofors]

Today's New York Times carries an article entitled "Windows is So Slow, but Why?". The article compares the development of Vista and MS' insistence on maintaining backwards compatibility, against Apple's strategy.

 

This somewhat amusing because I just read a blog article that states while backwards comptability use to be a big deal with Windows, an internal Microsoft struggle changed that fundamentally a few years ago:

 

...

To contrast, I've got DOS applications that I wrote in 1983 for the very original IBM PC that still run flawlessly, thanks to the Raymond Chen Camp at Microsoft. I know, it's not just Raymond, of course: it's the whole modus operandi of the core Windows API team. But Raymond has publicized it the most through his excellent website The Old New Thing so I'll name it after him.

 

That's one camp. The other camp is what I'm going to call the MSDN Magazine camp, which I will name after the developer's magazine full of exciting articles about all the different ways you can shoot yourself in the foot by using esoteric combinations of Microsoft products in your own software. The MSDN Magazine Camp is always trying to convince you to use new and complicated external technology like COM+, MSMQ, MSDE, Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer and its components, MSXML, DirectX (the very latest version, please), Windows Media Player, and Sharepoint... Sharepoint! which nobody has; a veritable panoply of external dependencies each one of which is going to be a huge headache when you ship your application to a paying customer and it doesn't work right. The technical name for this is DLL Hell. It works here: why doesn't it work there?

 

The Raymond Chen Camp believes in making things easy for developers by making it easy to write once and run anywhere (well, on any Windows box). The MSDN Magazine Camp believes in making things easy for developers by giving them really powerful chunks of code which they can leverage, if they are willing to pay the price of incredibly complicated deployment and installation headaches, not to mention the huge learning curve. The Raymond Chen camp is all about consolidation. Please, don't make things any worse, let's just keep making what we already have still work. The MSDN Magazine Camp needs to keep churning out new gigantic pieces of technology that nobody can keep up with.

 

Here's why this matters.

 

Microsoft Lost the Backwards Compatibility Religion

 

Inside Microsoft, the MSDN Magazine Camp has won the battle.

 

The first big win was making Visual Basic.NET not backwards-compatible with VB 6.0. This was literally the first time in living memory that when you bought an upgrade to a Microsoft product, your old data (i.e. the code you had written in VB6) could not be imported perfectly and silently. It was the first time a Microsoft upgrade did not respect the work that users did using the previous version of a product.

 

And the sky didn't seem to fall, not inside Microsoft. VB6 developers were up in arms, but they were disappearing anyway, because most of them were corporate developers who were migrating to web development anyway. The real long term damage was hidden.

 

With this major victory under their belts, the MSDN Magazine Camp took over. Suddenly it was OK to change things. IIS 6.0 came out with a different threading model that broke some old applications. I was shocked to discover that our customers with Windows Server 2003 were having trouble running FogBugz. Then .NET 1.1 was not perfectly backwards compatible with 1.0. And now that the cat was out of the bag, the OS team got into the spirit and decided that instead of adding features to the Windows API, they were going to completely replace it. Instead of Win32, we are told, we should now start getting ready for WinFX: the next generation Windows API. All different. Based on .NET with managed code. XAML. Avalon. Yes, vastly superior to Win32, I admit it. But not an upgrade: a break with the past.

...

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html

 

Moreover with Tiger, Apple promised API stability which implies stronger backwards compatibility.

[bofors]

This AppleInsider is interesting, Microsoft employee's calling for Ballmer's head:

 

http://appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1625

[Gooly]

Yes ppl forget the basic things (Not all), they are very much concerned towards the graphics part, they want gizmos around them, That’s why M$ hits the market. They really don’t know the architecture of the OS (though not required), When we carefully review the difference between the OSX & Windows, We will really know what all M$ lacks behind, When compared with UNIX/LINUX we have to move the M$ Products to trash. Right form the beginning M$ doesn’t have a very strong kernel, File System & other OS components. Though they are market leaders, they are unable to build a better OS. I think they are not sure, what to bring with vi$ta, since their release dates are being postponed, They take different things form different OSes, but failed to give a better solution.

 

Think while linux comes with a lot of free software (of course various flavours) and it consumes only 2-3Gigs of disk space for the complete installation, Where as Vi$ta consumes 4+ Gigs of disk space. I am worried if the OS itself consumes too much of disk space, what about the other software, We can often notice the disk activity, even if our system idle (while using windows). This makes windows very slow. Moreover the cost, If the PC costs Rs, 25000 and the software also costs the approx the same price, No one is going to buy the legal one, We should purchase a third party license to recover our own data during the crash. Quite nasty ….

[Mr. Bond]

This AppleInsider is interesting, Microsoft employee's calling for Ballmer's head:

 

http://appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1625

 

That's interesting Bofors. And really, I sort of agree. Someone has to be held accountable for these delays, and whether it be Ballmer or not, it's obvious that Microsoft is slipping here. I found this guy's comment particularly interesting...

 

"Folks, you're never going to switch to anything but Windows, so you have no say in the matter. We all know that most people who threaten to go over to Linux or Mac OS X are just making empty threats, or else they would have gotten sick of MS's {censored} and switched a while ago."

 

I personally witness 2-4 people switch to Mac everyday, 5x a week, and have done so since the "switcher' campaign started back in '02, and we're not even considered a high traffic computer store, much less an Apple Store or even an Apple Shop at CompUSA.

 

Do you really think that the huge popularity of the nearly 200 domestic AND international Apple stores [by years end '06, 150+ as of now] that have opened in less than 5 years is because of the Mac "faithful"?

 

http://www.apple.com/retail/

 

Seriously guys, THIS IS NOT A JOKE.

 

And it's true. These days, with the likes of Linux and OS X being so much more accesible to PC users, it's hard for people not to ignore the fact that they *do* have other choices available to them. People should begin to realise, that not only can they do pretty much everything possible on Windows PC's in Mac and Linux, but in a number of cases, these non-windows equivelants go above and beyond their windows counterparts. Personally, I prefer using XMMS over WMP or iTunes (with the exception of my iPod's need for it). As people start to get fed up with the continuing issues and delay's with MS's products, they'll realise that making the "switch" is now becoming easier than ever.

[-.-]

Does anyone here know how I can stop MS from sending me email? I keep marking them as spam but my account is Yahoo (yahoo that's what we used to call inbred hillbillies) and Yahoo (good grief, I cant believe anyone would name their company yahoo) is aparently related to MS, and they exempt MS spam from filters, I need a way for the email to return to them undelivered with a message like "REJECTED addressee does not accept mail from Microsoft" does anyone know how I can make it do that?

[TheoCryst]

Wow, things are not looking good at the moment for Microsoft. Of course, we all know that their massive market penetration will pull them through yet another huge series of f***-ups, but for how much longer? With Linux and OS X becoming more and more accessible on a near-daily basis, the MS crew could find themselves in some serious peril a few years from now. They really need to get their act together, slim down Windows, and stop breaking promises to their fans.

[dubnluvn]

Wow, things are not looking good at the moment for Microsoft. Of course, we all know that their massive market penetration will pull them through yet another huge series of f***-ups, but for how much longer? With Linux and OS X becoming more and more accessible on a near-daily basis, the MS crew could find themselves in some serious peril a few years from now. They really need to get their act together, slim down Windows, and stop breaking promises to their fans.

 

Screw em! Let M$ and their inferior OS burn in Hell. Hopefully they keep on the path they are on cuz thats where they are headed. I think with all the delays, when Vista is finally released the Mac will be getting so much attention and PC users will still be unfulfilled that they will want to make a change.

[Colonel]

For me at least, Windows Vista runs horribly, horribly slow. It also seems to crash alot. Micro$oft better do some major improvements on it.

[Mr. Bond]

You're most likely not "Windows Vista Certified". And by certified, that means essentially nothing available to consumers right now. Or so MS thinks...

[TopazBar]

I think any OS is as good as applications that runs/support it. Take Solaris from SUN for example, it is one of the most solid OS, but u cannot do your taxes on it. To do my taxes, I need windows XP and turbo tax from walmart (which BTW looks and feels like old Kmart).

 

I think Mac OS is finally at the pivot of attracting mainstream users (however, ..don't even think about running BF2 on Mac).

[anhaedra]

I think Mac OS is finally at the pivot of attracting mainstream users (however, ..don't even think about running BF2 on Mac).

 

Why not? It runs ok on a Intel iMac... Provided you install Windows. :\

[triangle]

Of Vista I was most interested in WinFS structure. I've searched over to get more on it and came upon this http://www.ntfs.com/ If you also feel interested in it you might give it a glance.

[aberracus]

Why not? It runs ok on a Intel iMac... Provided you install Windows. :\

 

i run quake 4 on osx on m y rig and its perfect

[A Nonny Moose]

Someone please help me understand why these so called review sites often point out the whimsical aspects of an Operating System?

 

Granted that they are added features. These widgets, tickers, etc, don't serve any purpose other than bloat. Who would sit at there computer to watch widgets more than 10 minutes a day? Unless you are a corp head that is interested in stock tickers, a bookie that needs real time scores, they usually have a dedicated display to view those. The applications they run far exceeds the tickets and widgets functionality. Traffic reports? Are you kidding? You can use your cell phone to get real time traffic report in your car! Unless you don't have a tele or you don't have a news channel that shows the weather forecast, maybe a weather map widget will serve it's purpose.

 

Granted, Widgets aren't exactly the best features of an OS (or "Gadgets" if you so prefer). I use Konfab and have four widgets: moon phase, weather (not map), movie times, and Internet time.

 

There are some features that get totally ignored. These features seem to take a back seat to widget lovers and haters alike, such as:

 

1. Automator

2. AppleScript (which has been around since at least OS 8)

3. ColorSync (ditto)

4. Spotlight (which is sometimes a pain)

5. And just about anything in the Utilities folder

 

Those alone can justify the Mac OS (and should be copied to other OS-es), but it seems like more and more people are focusing solely on widgets, including Opera and Microsoft.

[bwhsh8r]

Great artical thank you!

 

 

 

max