Seven client OSes that won't replace Windows

Scoobyclub Are you an economist? That's the group that usually starts off their statements with "Given that x" where x is what they want to prove... There have been several paradigm shifts in computing over the last 40 years. Here are just a few: GUIs Event driven programming Object oriented programming Object-based storage Highly networked computers Personal computers Portable computers The Internet Always on Internet Ubiquitous computing Ubiquitous network access Ubiquitous Internet access Tunneled private networks High-speed mobile Internet Client/Server computing n-tier computing Mesh networks Cloud computing Black hat hackers eCommerce Digital media distribution High resolution displays Consumers as users

"The iPhone, however, clearly represents a new paradigm." Ya, you know, cuz when you look up "new paradigm" in the Jobsian dictionary, you see a picture of flying iPhwn icons and the line "when cut and paste are no longer relevent, but sucking more money from your customers still is". Go back to your marketing job losta. You need all the practise you can get, cuz you ain't selling anyone on Apple's so-called "innovations" here.

lotsa Here. I'll start you off. Distributed Directory Services. (OS Middleware, not present in 1993) Innovators were Novell and Microsoft. (Novell's implementation didn't scale, Jim Allchin's architecture did and became Active Directory)

@mikegalos Depends on your definition of a paradigm shift I guess. As with innovation I think I am a little more demanding in what I expect of something described as such. I also dislike the hyperbole used by the technology industry to describe pretty run of the mill technology or tiny improvements ( or even non-improvements ) in a particular aspect of a product. A paradigm shift, in my mind anyway, has to be big and most, possibly every, item you mentioned is small, duplicated or decades old. I would class connecting two computers together such that they can talk as a paradigm shift. Every other network, internet etc is simply a scaling or evolution of that principle but. The paradigm remains the same. I think the GUI is possibly the only one I would class as a paradigm shift in recent history even if it is couple of decades old. Wireless connectivity I might also include. Trouble with technology, technology products etc is that everything has to be innovative or a paradigm shift because the marketing folks demand it and thus the words get devalued. I am no Apple apologist on this as they have milked them as much if not more than Microsoft. No, I am not an economist ( far from it ) and don't get the inference either.

@Shark47 The point is to come here and tell people that Windows sucks. Duh :-) Seriously, the only reason for posting on any message/blog like this is because you are bored in the office or have no life. Posting anything here will achieve absolutely nothing.

I am bored and achieving nothing. Guilty.

"Windows Mobile? Phhhht. Don't make me laugh." Wait, let me guess. You know of an admin, whose sister-in-law's daughter's classmate's stepfather had problems with Windows Mobile, right? Or, did you read it in a David Pogue article? Maybe a Steve Jobs keynote? Did Jobs ask you to laugh whenever Windows Mobile was mentioned?

chuck Actually, I personally think MPI (assuming from context that you mean the parallel processing API) is a rather miserable programming environment, tightly tied to old C paradigms and optimized to make the tool writing easier rather than the programming of the actual problem. I also wouldn't say it has anything to do with operating systems. As for ZFS, from what I've seen it has some nice features but nothing that's a big change from modern file systems. We definately need a paradigm change here and not incremental increases. On to multicore/manycore. Since nobody outside of Cupertino knows what Apple means with "Grand Central" it's a little early to even discuss it. (That's the downside they have to pay for secrecy). Microsoft, on the other hand, has had TPL and PLINQ out for a while now, has some very nice enhancements in HPC Server that really make implementing clusters much faster and easier than it was in CCS and has done some really nice distributed computing stuff in Robotics Developers Studio (that isn't just for robots) I'd agree with you that the real problem with smart phones of all types right now is that the UI for a limited size (but not really a limited resolution - that's a different issue) device requires a new way of thinking and nobody's got it. The iPhone's press coverage will probably be the real thing it contributes because it will actually get people thinking about the problem.

@Mike, One must admire the totality in which you have become drunk on the Redmond Koolaid. It really sounds like it's replaced your blood running through your veins. "nobody is innovating in operating systems except Microsoft" "The iPhone's press coverage will probably be the real thing it contributes" Wow. Amazing, sweeping condemnations and generalizations on an epic scale. We all know arguing with you is pointless (or we all should by now). Instead, all me to point to this summary of how Kevin Hoffman, operator of "The .Net Addict's Blog", views WinCE vs. iPhone development. It sure seems to contradict both of these ludicrous statements of yours. http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/08/20/kevin_hoffman_iphone_devel... Money Quote: "iPhone is the single best mobile development platform ever." Followed by... "writing Mac applications has made my Windows apps better." .Net Addict's Blog: http://dotnetaddict.dotnetdevelopersjournal.com/

@Papola: "As for mac users not knowing better, Paul himself has said he believes Mac users are generally more tech savvy since they aren't going with the default choice of the majority, but making a choice to use a different platform. I agree with Paul on that, which invalidates your point." So, you're invalidating Wae's opinion based on yours? "Paul himself has said he believes ..." So, OK, that's his opinion. How does that invalidate Wae's statement?

Tayme, For once, if anybody started providing useful information and facts like Mike, and not spout BS marketing schpiel like Johnpapola, cesjr and lotsamystuff, we would all be much better off. You might as well start by giving a rest to your badgering of Mike.

RaaJ Thanks, but it's a lost cause. Some people like to educate, some people like to attack. That's life in any online community. The trick is to learn which people provide facts and which don't and ignore the people whose posts don't add to the knowledge of the community. If not, you'll find you burn out and end up missing the good stuff because you can't stomach the rest.

tayme The question I ducked was not about what everyone had DONE but what they were DOING IN THE NEAR FUTURE, The first, I've answered. The second I can't without becoming as dishonest as the average Mac Rumor site. Speculating gets you nowhere. Now, care to tell me all those innovations from non-Microsoft operating systems that I've glossed over? You know. Add something to the conversation?

tayme Seeing how I've already posted a short book on OS history in just this thread, I've got nothing to prove and, apparently, you've got nothing to add.

DRWAM Bright and cheery as usual. (Now, don't hurt me!) :-)

@Tayme, Thanks for seeing me for what I am: someone that loves Apple's products and philosophy but is also fundamentally reasonable and interested in seeing all sides and being honest. I think it's clear for everyone to judge where we all stand in the spectrum of reasonable to extremist and open-minded to blindly partisan. My point in this thread was the same as yours. This is not a zero-sum game and in the end, people that try to paint it as such are ultimately just trying to prove themselves "right" for some strange personal ego gratification. Windows can be dominant and the Mac can be a great platform that keeps it's users happy. If someone love windows, great. If they think Microsoft is a great company, wonderful. But when they start claiming that nobody else is doing anything innovative (especially Apple) or that everything Apple does blows... well... that's neither reasonable or rational. Similarly, when the mac fans bash Microsoft unendingly, it's not fair or always true and honest. They've made real significant contributions and it doesn't take away from the Mac to acknowledge them. And Apple isn't infallible. The mobileme mess is just one example of that. Some of the major performance regressions in the iPhone 2.0 software is another (seriously, my treo's address book search was instant... and the palm had device-wide search... wtf Apple?) Mike thinks that he can invalidate my opinions because I have a silly blurb about worshipping Steve Jobs on my website. A blurb that is clearly a joke (though Jobs is a personal hero and leader I admire, no question). This is classic politics. Smear the messenger rather than discuss the message. If he thinks he's taking the high road, that's in keeping with his general "I know everything" professorial posture. He likes to "educate". I like to debate and discuss and learn with the acknowledgement that I don't know all things. Pride is one of the seven deadly sins, Mike. "The last time we discussed this, the best you came up with was one API group specific to video effects that's also present in Windows" - Mike He and I had a back and forth about this "MS is the only OS innovator" claim in a prior thread. I pointed to OSX's Quartz composition graphics layer and the fact that it along with the Core Image pre-date Avalon/WPF as a major innovation on Apple's part. You see his response. "One API group"? So fundamental graphics technology doesn't count as innovation for Mike. I guess the GUI and the technologies that underpin it are just not really part of OS innovation to him. If it doesn't fit his argument, he marginalizes it's importance. All of you can judge if Avalon/WPF was an important pillar of Vista or not. Microsoft thought it was a big deal. This is the "one API group" that Mike is trivializing and which Apple delivered ahead of them. If you think that's reasonable, than I lose this one. I don't think it is. I think Quartz is the proof that Mike's claim is wrong. You be the judge. I believe that Apple was also the first to deliver a sync service at the OS level that integrated with an online service for broad system and data sync (sync services + .mac).... though I could be dead wrong on that and I think that Live Mesh looks really really cool and promising. I'll end with this... "The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago." - Steve Jobs 1996

John, most of us probably won't watch, but we'll still give you our opinion.

Back OT, I don't feel qualified to give an opinion, and I may be wrong, but I am at least impressed with PACS technology as well as image fusion. When I first saw a data CD back in 1995, I knew that we would soon be giving a patient a copy of their images as well as reports, on a CD instead of film. Now xray film has been replaced by solid state digital detectors. many images are now processed into 3D studies and some are fused, or superimposed onto other image studies. The data is processed to match the the same voxel density, or at least the same pixel matrix. Mostly, the Workstations used are Windows based, second place would be Linux, usually RedHat. A rare few have Macs. I do find MIMvista very useful, for PET/CT. It's funny that this $20,000 software is Windows only, but they have a viewer for the iPhone. Still, the install base is small, making the iphone app pretty much irrelevant. Besides, viewing on an iPhone would only demonstrate grossly large abnormalities as the display is too small to adequately evaluate a PET/CT. These technologies seem kinda innovative to me.