Vista struggles to bust out as business customers snub it

By Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY
Will Weider is just the kind of customer Microsoft (MSFT) needs to keep its Windows computer operating system franchise growing.

He oversees tech for a chain of Wisconsin hospitals — 14,000 computers' worth. But Weider has no desire to upgrade to Vista, the latest version of Windows.

STORY: Microsoft teams up with 'CSI' series

"I wouldn't put on Vista if it was free," says Weider, chief information officer for Ministry Health Care. "In the past, there's always been an important reason to upgrade, but XP (the previous version of Windows) is perfectly acceptable."

Even as it pursues Internet icon Yahoo to create a more potent online-advertising rival to Google, Microsoft is facing increasing pressure on its Windows cash cow. Corporate customers such as Weider are staging a rare revolt over upgrading to Vista, which launched with much fanfare in January 2007. Last week, Microsoft reported a 24% decline in Windows sales in the third quarter.

"This year is make-it-or-break-it time for Vista," says analyst Benjamin Gray of market tracker Forrester Research. "Vista is getting hammered right and left in the press, and companies are concerned. I'm getting daily client inquiries about skipping Vista altogether and waiting for the next version of Windows. Microsoft is having a tough time convincing their corporate clients that Vista isn't a risky bet."

Microsoft rebuilt Windows from scratch to create Vista, which has a dazzling interface and improved security tools. But so much computing power is required to run it that many people find their new PCs run slower than older, less powerful XP machines. To spur sales, Microsoft earlier this month said consumers will no longer be able to purchase XP as of June 30. The announcement and pending date have unleashed a firestorm of Vista angst.

Online magazine InfoWorld is waging a Save XP campaign. More than 175,000 signatures have been gathered. "Why pull the plug on XP when there's clearly a lot of people who still like it?" says Galen Gruman, InfoWorld executive editor.

Influential analyst Michael Silver at research firm Gartner calls the Vista launch a "disaster." Other critics have been no kinder. CNet called Vista one of the "biggest blunders in technology." PC magazine chronicles Vista's "11 Pillars of Failure." The Christian Science Monitor likened it to Coca-Cola's disastrous New Coke experiment in the 1980s.

Vista — not Windows — is the butt of jokes in Apple ads.

Working the bugs out

Microsoft says it has sold 140 million Vista licenses, mostly in sales to HP, Dell and others. About 80% of Microsoft's Windows revenue comes from direct sales to PC manufacturers.

While Microsoft says it is happy with Vista sales, CEO Steve Ballmer last week told reporters he might reconsider the June 30 end date for XP. "If customer feedback varies, we can always wake up smarter," he said.

The company's XP vs. Vista issue is with enterprise customers like Weider, who buy software for legions of employees. When Vista launched, many existing PC software applications and drivers for things like printers didn't work with it. That prompted many corporate IT departments to wait — as they normally do — for the bugs to be fixed.

Indeed, analyst Allan Krans of Technology Business Research attributes the weaker quarterly sales results in Microsoft's Windows division to enterprises putting off Vista upgrades.

Sales of Windows XP were up 10.5% at a similar period a year after its launch, he says. "XP found better reception from enterprise."

Microsoft says a recent update — Service Pack 1 — addressed most of the compatibility issues. "People need to look at Vista today," says Kevin Kutz, director of Microsoft's Windows client division. "We think people will have a great experience."

Still, UPS' WorldShip software — used by 550,000 of its small-business clients to ship packages to customers — doesn't work with Vista. (UPS says it will start supporting Vista by summer.)

Similarly, FedEx's Ship Manager software doesn't work with Vista. (FedEx says upgrades will be released later this year.)

Joey Mariano, who runs E-Geniuses, a Los Angeles-based PC consulting firm, recommends his small-business clients stick with XP. "We deal with small to midsize businesses, and they want to know that everything works. With Vista, they can't be sure," Mariano says.

At Harvard University's medical facilities, about 8,000 computers are in use by staffers, and there are no plans to upgrade to Vista, says John Halamka, dean of technology for Harvard Medical School. "XP is running well," he says. Microsoft "could potentially have another operating system on the market by the time we're in a position to do a major upgrade."

Gartner polled its corporate clients at the end of 2007 and found that Vista was in use on less than 1% of desktops and 3% of notebooks. Forrester Research did a similar poll and came up with 6.3% of clients by late 2007. Forrester's Gray projects corporate use jumping to 25% by the end of 2008.

Vista sales "clearly have been a disappointment," says Gray, who now views a 25% adoption rate as decent. "It would have seemed really disappointing if you'd asked me a year ago," he says.

Incompatibility issues

Despite corporate foot-dragging, Gray and Silver tell clients to bite the bullet soon, because incompatibility issues might get worse if they wait.

Robert Fort, vice president of information technology for Virgin Entertainment Group, a Los Angeles chain of music stores, installed Vista on 100 PCs for employees already and is delighted he did. "It works for us," he says. "It's a more solid operating system. We haven't had any problems."

Beyond business-customer resistance, Vista home users have jammed message boards, such as VistaBanter.com and Support 4 Vista (support4vista.com), with complaints about sluggish performance.

"In our tests, even with the new service pack, Vista is still much slower on the same equipment than XP," says InfoWorld's Gruman.

Adds analyst Roger Kay of Endpoint Technologies, "I have Vista on a notebook with 2 gigabytes of memory and a decent-size processor, and with Vista on there, it just doesn't work. It takes over 10 minutes just to open a Word document."

Many users have complained about Vista's aggressive messaging. In an effort to keep PCs safer from potential hackers, Vista built in "user account controls." The prompts ask you if you really want to move files or accept downloads, for instance. The result can be a very busy parade of messages.

"That drives me crazy," says Weider. "I always think I'm going to get a blue screen of death." (He refers to past versions of Windows, which sometimes crashed with a blue screen telling of a "fatal error.")

Apple, long the underdog in computer sales, has seen a revival in its fortunes thanks to the iPod and success of its Apple Stores. Macintosh computer sales also have risen substantially — up 51% in the recent quarter from the year before — as frustrated Windows customers have apparently switched.

"When your most important competitor stumbles at a moment when you're accelerating, it's going to have an effect," says Kay.

Vista lite?

This all comes at a precarious time for Microsoft, suggests Silver, co-author of a Gartner report, "Windows is Collapsing." The system has just gotten too big for its own good and scared off customers, he says.

"Lots of people are looking for PCs that have less resources — lower-cost, entry-level PCs — not more, and they simply can't run Vista," he says.

Silver says Windows needs to get smaller and modular — so that, say, one version would be available for entry-level PCs, while a bigger version could be used for more powerful machines.

Weider says if Microsoft could figure out a way to have a fast-moving Windows, he would happily buy it. "If a new version of Windows would boot in a couple of seconds and switching network users were near instantaneous, that would be worth the time, money and effort to upgrade," he says.

Microsoft's Kutz disagrees with Gartner's "Windows is Collapsing" report but admits the Vista launch could have gone better.

"Make sure all the applications and hardware are compatible and absolutely ready on Day 1," he says. "We could have done a better job on that."

And looming around the corner is the next version of Windows, which could be here sooner rather than later. Code-named Windows 7, Microsoft says it will be available by January 2010, just a year and a half away.



Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/software/2008-04-29-microsoft-windows-vista_N.htm

"But whatever the hardware, the gateway will be the browser or some lightweight widget or app. The browser is the platform drawing in businesses, consumers and developers. The browser extends the Web, which is the real operating system Jim discusses."

Glad you qualified this with "or some lightweight widget or app." Itunes would meet this description, or perhaps some future application that becomes a gateway. The browser has its limitations, due to its roots as a static rich document display application. Sure, Microsoft has been struggling with its legacy OS and Office apps, but the browser has its own legacy issues to deal with if it wants to evolve.

One thing I would like to know: does the author prefer using web apps over comparable desktop apps? E.g. does the author prefer using a web email app over a desktop email client? Doesn't he realize that most people who use Windows Live Writer, prefer using the desktop client over in-browser editors? Doesn't he realize that most people prefer using MS Office over Google Apps by a gigantic margin? The author needs to compare connected desktop apps (vs. regular desktop apps) to browser apps, to gauge the viability of the former. There is no indication that connected desktop apps are going to fade over time, as they can be far richer, and more versatile than the browser. In fact, these types of apps appear to be growing in popularity.

Besides, who wants to go back to the horrible days of thin client of computing? In those days, users were totally at the mercy of sys admins. They did not have the empowerment that fat PCs brought. I just don't understand why pundits keep pushing for the re-emergence of thin client compputing, when it is fat PCs which democratized computing, and allowed them to write the very criticisms about the PC they are now doing.

"I just don't understand why pundits keep pushing for the re-emergence of thin client compputing, when it is fat PCs which democratized computing, and allowed them to write the very criticisms about the PC they are now doing."

Because business and consumerism sees the move toward offloading the computing burdens from the client to other resources as a smart move. That's why.

Pundits are only reporting what the trends tell them is happening.

"Because business and consumerism sees the move toward offloading the computing burdens from the client to other resources as a smart move. That's why."

Why is this a smart move? If the PC can provide apps with far richer interfaces that have more versatile utilities, how is the move to be absolutely dependent on computing resources in the cloud (and an Internet connection) better? It is one thing to augment desktop apps with services to enable users to get the best of both (the desktop and Internet) worlds, it is another thing to forgo all the advantages of the PC, and take several steps back to cloud computing of old (the mainframe). Quite frankly, if we kept on pursuing cloud computing from the 70s, there would be no consumer market for computing, and the few who would 'enjoy' it, would probably be confined to manipulating text data on green screen monitors.

"Pundits are only reporting what the trends tell them is happening."

Pundits are ignoring the trends towards connected desktop applications (away from regular desktop apps) which is proving to be more appealing than regular desktop apps and browser based apps.

Yes, there will be widgets and other small portable internet devices and that is going to continue to be the big growth area. But I still believe there is a lot of growth yet within the full PC browser and online experience. My daughter, 16, and son 14, have internet phones and wifi PSP and even more I am sure. But they still get in front of the PC for that full-feature, big-screen experience you just can't get from a hand held device.

I can see the browser being the OS of the future. Whatever OS you run on your PC will be of little significance as long as it is capable of running your browser and all it's add-ons.

As for the "fat" on our PC's now, yes it will go away, but it does not disappear. It goes to a better place... the clouds. There will continue to be rich media laden content and awesome applications for both work and leisure. They just won't be residing on our hard-drives.

It kind of reminds me of a job I had a couple years ago at a bank. I had a PC at my desk, but I didn't really use it. I used the keyboard, mouse and monitor, but my actual "PC" was some virtual machine at the bank's headquarters. This experience taught me that as many advantages as their was to this, it caused just as many disadvantages. Outages, although VERY infrequent, once they happened, they were devastating.

As for browsers, I am now using Firefox 3 b5. I love it. Definitely does not have the memory leak issue of 2. The one complaint I do have is that it is a bit slow to open. I hope that is resolved with the gold.

One more thing, I would like to thank whoever posted the USA Today article. Pretty much what I have been saying all along. It even looks like Ballmer is giving up on Vista. In Microsoft's best interest, they may as well keep selling the two OS's side-by-side until Windows 7 comes out. And perhaps they will. They could give them new names: New Windows (for Vista) and Windows Classic (for XP). Soda pop companies and car companies have done it. Do they even make "Vista" Coke anymore? Remember when the new Jeep Grand Cherokee came out in the 90's, and they kept the old Cherokee? And in 1997, fourteen years after it debuted, the Cherokee received a facelift, well, actually quite a bit more than a facelift. The $215 million update had the front and rear ends smoothed out, the interior was updated and noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) levels were reduced. Sort of like a service pack for a Jeep. The Cherokee was selcted by Robert Cumerford as one of the 20 greatest cars of all time, calling it "possibly the best SUV shape of all time, it is the paradigmatic model to which other designers have since aspired." So I don't think there would be that much of a problem if Microsoft just continued to sell both OS's in any format: Direct OEM, System Builder, Retail. If they can do the next OS right, Microsoft can just let both XP and Vista sail off into the extended support sunset at the same time.

And then there's more I-Man pointing toward "coincidental" occurances such as this Verizon Press Release.
REMINDER-VCSY Owns Now Solutions!! hehehe
Funny thing was, Microsoft put out a similar PR two days later(strange?)

Verizon Business Powers 'Software-as-a-Service' Business Model for NOW Solutions Inc.

NOW Solutions Rolls Out Web-Based HR Software Suite, Supported by Verizon
Business Data Center Services With Built-In Security and Reliability
BASKING RIDGE, N.J., Jan. 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Verizon Business Data
Center Services are supporting NOW Solutions Inc.'s rollout of a new
Web-based human resource management software service designed to help
businesses perform key personnel functions including payroll, performance
reviews and benefits administration. Verizon Business services are
providing round-the-clock access and a secure, robust environment for
delivering NOW Solutions' new delivery model of its emPath(R) portfolio of
human resource software services.
The NOW Solutions software is now built on an increasingly popular
model known as software-as-a-service (SaaS) in which the applications are
hosted by the vendor, rather than the customer, and delivered as a service
over the Web to help control set-up and operational costs. When delivered
as an SaaS service, the emPath human resources management system (HRMS)
helps to minimize the strain on companies' internal information resources
and infrastructure capacity.
"It's critical that NOW Solutions takes the lead in defining the
software- as-a-service model in the HRMS market," said Laurent Tetard, the
company's vice president of operations. "Verizon Business Data Center
Services provide an effective, secure and scalable environment for the
delivery of our software suite."
NOW Solutions, based in Fort Worth, Texas, is one of the industry's
leading providers of end-to-end strategic human resources, payroll and
benefit administration services. The company recently announced the
availability of its SaaS emPath(R) HRMS solution for customers in the
United States and Canada.
The appeal of SaaS, in addition to helping businesses control
infrastructure and maintenance costs, is its ability to deliver
applications based on real-time usage. NOW Solutions said the SaaS delivery
model also helps it provide quicker responses to changing business
application needs.
For NOW Solutions' HRMS offering, Verizon Business Data Center Services
provide carrier-class infrastructure support such as:
-- Web-based delivery, multi-tenant architecture and 24/7 availability.
-- Redundant power supplies and network connections.
-- World-class physical and data security.
-- Advanced administrative controls and monitoring processes.
"NOW Solutions also is relying on Verizon Business' world-class data
infrastructure to help avoid downtime, control its own infrastructure
operational costs, increase up-time and concentrate more fully on
delivering Internet-centric services to its enterprise customers," said Jim
DeMerlis, vice president, managed services, Verizon Business. "Verizon
Business Data Center Services are a perfect match for companies like NOW
Solutions needing a robust underlying infrastructure to deliver SaaS
applications."

JOE. PLEASE GET SPAMMERS OFF YOUR SITE. YOU ARE LETTING I-MAN HIJACK AND ABUSE YOUR SITE. WHEN IS ENOUGH ENOUGH?

JOE. PLEASE GET SPAMMERS OFF YOUR SITE. YOU ARE LETTING I-MAN HIJACK AND ABUSE YOUR SITE. WHEN IS ENOUGH ENOUGH?

To I-Man: I warned you months ago about this VCSY stuff. You've resumed spamming the comments again, and I've let it go for too long. This is your last warning, otherwise I've got to ban you. I've never had to ban a commenter here before. Do you REALLY want to be the first?

Joe

Office is a suit, the Web is a T-shirt. One hundred years ago, common labourers still wore rough, but suit-cut clothes, often with a tie. Fifty years ago, Dave Packard and Bill Hewlett wore a suit and tie, but they took their coat off and rolled up their sleves when they got to work. Now even IBM engineers have gone casual.

Communication, to say nothing about personal communication, has gone through the same phases. There's precious little reason for most people and workers to use the flourishes that Microsoft Word provides.

When the need for the tool goes away, the tools are soon to follow. Anybody need a nice log-log sliderule? Word is overkill for almost everyone, Excel is more that all but a few need and can use. It's not just the Web, it's a cultural shift.

Joe, I apologize for my pushiness and if you'll notice you and your column are highly thought of:

http://ajaxamine.tripod.com/PortPot/

Why is this a smart move?

It is far more economical to have some hardware in the system working hard than all of it idling. A typical PC may have a CPU that is utilized 3% and RAM utilized 25%. Using servers for the work, we can have them paying for themselves in throughput instead of using PCs sitting there depreciating. Do the maths. You can buy a thin client or light PC for $100 but a $5000 server can satisfy 100 users at once. That is much less costly then a few hundred dollars per seat using fat PCs. The thin machine may also have fewer moving parts, longer life, lower noise and lower power consumption. No negatives at all if the job can be done with this setup. About the only job that a thin client cannot do well is full screen video and that is a matter of bandwidth that will soon be abundant.

Why is this a smart move?

"If the PC can provide apps with far richer interfaces that have more versatile utilities, how is the move to be absolutely dependent on computing resources in the cloud (and an Internet connection) better?"

The PC can't provide apps with richer processing. The interfaces SHOULD be on the client, but, the processing resources needed to address any particular problem does not need to be on the client.

The kind of processing that can be done on a client doesn't need the entire library of functions available on the client.

If your hardware could bring in processing capabilities as they became necessary, the infrastructural footprint would be much smaller.

The amount of juggling the kernel would have to do to keep all things computational ready for just that moment when you might want to fold a protein or run an explosives simulation, would be reduced to the things the user really wants and uses.

An OS like Vista carries far too much burden in terms of memory used and processing speeds needed. THAT is the problem and THAT is why Vista will become the poster child for dividing up content and format and putting that on the client with whatever functionality is appropriate for local computing.

This isn't your grandfather's thin client.

"It is one thing to augment desktop apps with services to enable users to get the best of both (the desktop and Internet) worlds, it is another thing to forgo all the advantages of the PC, and take several steps back to cloud computing of old (the mainframe)."

Why does everyone always expect the extremes whenever they confront the oncoming wave of a disruption event? What is being made available is the proper delegation of processing power and resource burden.

You rightly care about a fast user interface experience. But, you assume the local client is always the best place to do the processing of the content that your UI is formatting.

The amount of processing necessary to accomplish building or providing the content that will be displayed by your formatting resources can be small or large. It is better to balance your checkbook on your client. It is better to fold a protein on a server, then pass the necessary interface data and you get to see how the protein folding is done in only a few megabytes... instead of terabytes.

"Quite frankly, if we kept on pursuing cloud computing from the 70s, there would be no consumer market for computing, and the few who would 'enjoy' it, would probably be confined to manipulating text data on green screen monitors."

We couldn't continue mainframing from that time because there was not a ubiquitous transport able to pass the kind of interface data needed outside of the corporate infrastructure.

Local PCs gave small businesses the ability to get the computing power in their mainframe sessions locally. And, until Windows, we had exactly that thin client experience on the "PC".

Windows gave us an improved "experience" but at the cost of a race in keeping hardware current with a kind of planned obsolescence schedule.

We are STILL chasing the "experience" on computers that can do everything else BUT formatting content well is STILL being chased - it's why "Glass" is the key improvement in Vista, is it not? It's why the "ribbon" is an "enhancement" and not just another effort to pack more functionality into an application interface...

THE INTERFACE. Not the computing. The interface; a particular amount of content formatted and displayed. Functionality is what the computer actually does when you press that pretty button or sweep over that pretty video.

Mainframes that are thirty years old connected to a beautiful modern interface can make modern thin client stations sing... and THAT is what everyone has missed in this entire equation.

Web platforming allows a modernization of legacy hardware AND legacy software without having to touch the client. When you understand how that happens, you will quickly see precisely what the pundits are seeing. That's why I said: 'Pundits are only reporting what the trends tell them is happening.'

"Pundits are ignoring the trends towards connected desktop applications (away from regular desktop apps) which is proving to be more appealing than regular desktop apps and browser based apps."

Do you know WHY "Pundits are ignoring the trends towards connected desktop applications"? Because there aren't any you can get to across the internet! At least until very recently.

If you're on your corporate intranet, fine. But, tell me please, just how many "connected desktop applications" there are? Microsoft certainly has little and THAT's even on their own network protocols.

THAT is what's ridiculous.

XML allows applications to connect. Microsoft invented SOAP to do it (and SOAP is an RPC system using XML as the conduit) and they can't do that very well. Only on the most stable and private networks.

DO IT ON THE INTERNET and the world might respect MSFT.

The result of Microsoft not being on the internet is their own operating system is being forced into islandhood and the rest of the industry takes the internet as their territory.

It's an architectural thing and there's no getting around those. It's the same thing you get when you build a highway interchange. It's set in concrete and that's the way the cars are going to have to go, so get used to it.

Lamenting the death of a dinosaur is always unbecoming. IBM did it when The Mainframe met the end of its limits in throughput and and reach. The PC applied what the mainframe could do on the desk.

Now, you need a desktop with literally the computing power of many not-so-old mainframes to send email, shop for shoes, and write letters to granny. Who's idea of proper usage is this? Those who want a megalith to prop up their monopoly.

The world wants different.

Since there are broadband leaps being carved out in the telecommunications industry, the server can do much more with what we all really want to do than a costly stranded processor unable to reach out and touch even those of its own kind much less the rest of the world's applications.

The mentality is technological bunkerism and is what happens in the later stages of disruption. It took years for this to play out on IBM.

It's taken only six months to play out on Microsoft and it's only just begun. We haven't even reached the tipping point and we can see the effect accelerating from week to week.

It's due to the nature of the media through which the change is happening. With PC's the adoption period was years. With internet services and applications, the adoption period is extremely fast.

"The kind of processing that can be done on a client doesn't need the entire library of functions available on the client.

If your hardware could bring in processing capabilities as they became necessary, the infrastructural footprint would be much smaller.

The amount of juggling the kernel would have to do to keep all things computational ready for just that moment when you might want to fold a protein or run an explosives simulation, would be reduced to the things the user really wants and uses."

How then do you expect to work offline? I have nothing against augmenting local processing with cloud processing, but part of the appeal of the client is being able to do substantial work offline during no connection or imperfect / limited network / Internet connection scenarios. Believe me, for most people, limited network / Internet connection scenarios occur all the time. Also, the software + software services architecture minimizes bandwidth demands allowing more applications and more people to benefit from an Internet connection at a particular node. In other words, the above architecture is much more efficient than a dumb terminal architecture, or the one that you are advocating. This means that e.g. in a scenario where you have a movie being downloaded to your Xbox 360, several podcasts automatically being downloaded to your iTunes or Zune client software, your TV schedule being updated in Media Center, your using a browser, etc., and the above being multiplied for several users and several devices at a particular Internet connection, the software + software services architecture is seen to be far better and more practical than a dumb terminal architecture.

"How then do you expect to work offline?"

Cloud computing is definitely not something that is going to happen overnight, and it is not going to be for everyone.

As time goes by and technology, reliability and performance increase, you will never be offline. Being offline in the future will be equivalent of your offline machine not booting today.

I am certain there will be "high-end" machines in the future that will operate on a similar principal to our "fat" PC's. They will be for those who need them or want them and are willing to pay the money to have them.

"Joe, I apologize for my pushiness and if you'll notice you and your column are highly thought of: "

Joe, the link provided is to portu***'s personal blog. I am sure you are very impressed with praise from a known pump & dumper.

Just a minor suggestion: Instead of watching "The Real World," maybe the real joke is that MicroSoft is watching "As the World Turns" (take your pick--the soap opera or that funky spinning icon on IE Explorer).

Anyway, Joe, I loved this one!

@ P. Douglas,
"How then do you expect to work offline?"

Offline work can be done by a kernel dedicated to the kind of work needed at the time. In other words, instead of a megalith kernel (Vistas is 200MB+) running all functions, you place a kernel (an agent can be ~400KB) optimized for the specific kind of work to tbe done. This kernel can be very small (because it won't be doing ALL processing - only the processing necessary for the tasks selected - it can be only one of multiple kernels interconnected for state determinism) and the resources available online or offline (downloaded when the task is selected).

The big "bugaboo" during the AJAX development efforts in 2005 and 2006 was "how do you work offline"? The agent method places an operational kernel on the client which is a mirror (if necessary) of the processing capability on the remote server. When the system is "online", the kernel cooperates with the server for tasking and processing. When the client is "offline", the local agent does the work, then synchs up the local state with the server when online returns.

No online-offline bugaboo. Just a proper architecture. That's what was needed and AJAX doesn't provide that processing capability. All AJAX was originally intended to do was to reduce that latency between client button push, server response and client update..

"...part of the appeal of the client is being able to do substantial work offline during no connection or imperfect / limited network / Internet connection scenarios."

Correct. And you don't need a megalithic operating system to do that. What you DO need is an architecture that's fitted to take care of both kinds of processing with the most efficient resources AT THE TIME. Not packaged and lugged around waiting for the moment.

"...limited network / Internet connection scenarios occur all the time."

Agreed. So the traditional solution is to load everything that may ever be used on the client? Why don't we use that on-line time to pre-process what can be done and load the client with post processing that is most likely for that task set?

"Also, the software + software services architecture minimizes bandwidth demands allowing more applications and more people to benefit from an Internet connection at a particular node. In other words, the above architecture is much more efficient than a dumb terminal architecture, or the one that you are advocating."

"More efficient" at the cost of much larger demands on local computing resources. Much larger demands on memory (both storage and runtime). Much larger demands on processor speed (the chip has to run the background load of the OS plus any additional support apps running to care for the larger processing load you've accepted).

You will find there will be no "dumb terminals" in the new age. A mix of resources is what the next age requires and a prejudice against a system that was limited by communications constraints 20 years ago doesn't address the problems brought forward by crammed clients.

"This means that e.g. in a scenario where you have a movie being downloaded to your Xbox 360, several podcasts automatically being downloaded to your iTunes or Zune client software, your TV schedule being updated in Media Center, your using a browser, etc., and the above being multiplied for several users and several devices at a particular Internet connection, the software + software services architecture is seen to be far better and more practical than a dumb terminal architecture."

At a much higher cost in hardware, software, maintenance and governance.

Companies are not going to accept your argument when a fit client method is available. The fat client days are spelled out by economics and usefulness.

Because applications can't interoperate (Microsoft's own Office XML format defies interoperation for Microsoft - how is the rest of the world supposed to interoperate?) they are limited in what pre-processing, parallel processing or component processing can be done. The only model most users have any experience with is the fat client model... and the inefficiencies of that model are precisely what all the complaining is about today.

Instead of trying to justify that out-moded model, the industry is accepting a proper mix of capabilities and Microsoft has to face the fact (along with Apple and Linux) that a very large part of their user base can get along just fine with a much more efficient, effective and economical model - being either thin client or fit client.

It's a done deal and the fat client people chose to argue the issues far too late because the megaliths that advocate fat client to maintain their monopolies and legacies no longer have a compelling story.

The remote resources and offloaded burdens tell a much more desirable story.

People listen.

@ Joe -

As you can see by your statistics, I am not I-man and I-man is not me. Anybody can copy and paste my words. That doesn't mean I am everybody. To claim I am with no more than assumption for proof is self-serving and near-sighted.

Those who are whining about me would do better to answer my questions and engage and confront my technical dissections than hoping a technicality will make me go away.

This is a common problem with people who do not know how to debate: they want to get rid of the messenger no matter what it takes - even if it's a case of mistaken identity.

@ Robert Pogson :

Well said.

@portonumbnuts:
Nobody is whining about debate and relevant posts. The only complaints have been about VCSY stock-scam spamming of this site. If someone's posts are going to be constant praise for VCSY (which is a worthless garbage penny stock and deserves no attention at all, especially here), then Joe should exercise the right to protect his site. If the constant pumping of VCSY stock is a distraction and degrades the quality of other readers' experience, then it definitely needs to go.

I find all this chit-chat about future predictions of "fat" and "thin" clients to be amusing, sometimes informative, but with much of it still so stuck in the 1980s when 64KB of RAM was breathtakingly large and rather expensive, a 10 MB hard disk was considered a huge and expensive luxury, and a dog of a PC that had both was over $4000. Back then, a "fat client" implied a big and expensive PC that did the jobs itself, while a "thin client" implied smaller and cheaper PC that just ran the user interface to services on back-end servers.

But along the way, "fat PC clients" and "thin PC clients" are quite often about the same size and cost. SaaS is still about control and maintenance, but no longer about cost. For instance, it's much better to provide an IMAP4 or Web access to a centralized email and calendar service, but only because that provides better control and maintenance than giving each client its very own mail server and calendar manager. But these days, if the client machine is a PC then it costs about the same in hardware either way, and costs the same in software too, if FOSS email servers and calendar managers are used.

But wait, the discussions now include mobile phones and PDAs in the "thin client" category. And aren't those thin clients much cheaper than "fat" PC clients when both are used for the same tasks? Well, yes, of course they are. And if those tasks are all that matter, then indeed the world is moving toward thin non-PC clients.

But... Earth to Microsoft-Watch-Posters... When considering clients that aren't PCs, the world has ALREADY MOVED to non-PC thin clients. Embedded CPU boards are vastly more prevalent in the world today than PC CPU boards. Microwave ovens, smart appliances, GPS units from hand-held to those built in to high-end automobile, boat, and airplane navigation, automobile and airplane engine controllers, smart radios, smart TVs, DVRs, set-top boxes... this list includes only a tiny percentage of the total types of devices today that contain their own embedded computers and can be classified along with mobile phones and PDAs as "thin clients". Is the world moving toward thin clients? IT ALREADY HAS! And their pervasiveness shows that thin clients have already won the market numbers war.

But many computers derive their value from their complexity. For them, a digital video editor will never be as easy to use as a toaster... otherwise it would only be a toaster and nothing more. Nobody is going to edit video on a mobile phone, PDA, or on an internet-based server from a web browser. Nobody is going to professionally Photoshop pictures or even retouch and edit their personal digital photos on a mobile phone or PDA, and with the proliferation of 10 and even 12 mega-pixel cameras, few people are going to edit many of their personal high-res photos on an internet-based server from a web broswer.

And so, while "thin clients" have won the marketing numbers war, "fat" clients will continue to provide value and won't disappear. With the increasing usability and capability of FOSS, intense pressure on Microsoft and Apple may eventually diminish or even eliminate their roles on the "fat client" stage.

But progress in technology is about choices and not about a single winner-take-all form factor. SaaS, mobile phones, PDAs, and desktop workhorses will all be integral, valuable, and tenacious features of the landscape. The only thing up for debate is whether or not proprietary monopolies will continue their unbated dominance within this landscape.

Peace!

"Offline work can be done by a kernel dedicated to the kind of work needed at the time. In other words, instead of a megalith kernel (Vistas is 200MB+) running all functions, you place a kernel (an agent can be ~400KB) optimized for the specific kind of work to tbe done. This kernel can be very small (because it won't be doing ALL processing - only the processing necessary for the tasks selected - it can be only one of multiple kernels interconnected for state determinism) and the resources available online or offline (downloaded when the task is selected)."

I don't quite understand what you are saying. Are you saying computers should come with multiple, small, dedicated Operating Systems (OSs)? What do you do then when a user wants to run an application that uses a range of resources spanning the services provided by these multiple OSs? Do you understand the headache this will cause developers? Instead of having to deal with a single coherent set of APIs, they will have deal with multiple overlapping APIs? Also it seems to me that if an application spans multiple OSs, there will be significant latency issues. E.g. if OS A is servicing 3 applications, and one of the applications (App 2) is being serviced by OS B, App 2 will have to wait until OS A is finished servicing requests made by 2 other applications. What you are suggesting would result in unnecessary complexity, and would wind up being overall more resource intensive than a general purpose OS - like the kinds you find in Windows, Mac, and Linux.

"The agent method places an operational kernel on the client which is a mirror (if necessary) of the processing capability on the remote server. When the system is "online", the kernel cooperates with the server for tasking and processing. When the client is "offline", the local agent does the work, then synchs up the local state with the server when online returns."

The software + services architecture is better because: of the reasons I indicated above; a user can reliably do his work on the client (i.e. he is not at the mercy of an Internet connection); data can be synched up just like in your model.

""More efficient" at the cost of much larger demands on local computing resources. Much larger demands on memory (both storage and runtime). Much larger demands on processor speed (the chip has to run the background load of the OS plus any additional support apps running to care for the larger processing load you've accepted)."

Local computing resources are cheap enough and are far more dependable than the bandwidth requirements under your architecture.

"At a much higher cost in hardware, software, maintenance and governance.

Companies are not going to accept your argument when a fit client method is available. The fat client days are spelled out by economics and usefulness."

Thin client advocates have been saying this for decades. The market has replied that the empowerment, and versatility advantages of the PC, outweigh whatever maintenance savings there are in thin client solutions. In other words, it is a user's overall productivity which matters (given the resources he has), and users are overall much more productive and satisfied with PCs, than they are with thin clients.

@Philosopher:

It's about getting the appropriate usefulness out of a system for the least money and greatest flexibility.

As you've said, the world has already moved in that direction. The desktop and the laptop are the last to move.

P. Douglas:
"I don't quite understand what you are saying. Are you saying computers should come with multiple, small, dedicated Operating Systems (OSs)? "

What would you think Windows 7 will be? More of the same aggregated functionality packaged into a shrinkwrapped package? Would you not make the OS an assembly of interoperable components that could be distributed and deployed when and where needed, freeing the user's machine to use the hardware resources for the user experience rather than as a hot box for holding every dll ever made?

"unnecessary complexity"????

Explain to me how a single OS instance running many threads is less complex than multiple OS functions running their own single threads and passing results and state to downstream (or upstream if you need recursion) processes.

What I've just described is a fundmental structure in higher end operating systems for mainframes. IBM is replacing a system with thousands of servers with only 33 mainframes. What do you think is going on inside those mainframes? And why can't that kind of process work just as well in a single client or a client connected to a server or a client connected to many servers AND many clients fashioned into an ad hoc supercomputer for the period needed?

"Thin client advocates have been saying this for decades."

The most dangerous thing to say is "this road has been this way for years" and driving into the future with your eyes closed.

If your position were correct, we would never be having this conversation. But, we ARE having this conversation because the industry is moving forward and upward and leaving behind those who say "...advocates have been saying this for decades...".

Yada Yada Yada

"What would you think Windows 7 will be? More of the same aggregated functionality packaged into a shrinkwrapped package? Would you not make the OS an assembly of interoperable components that could be distributed and deployed when and where needed, freeing the user's machine to use the hardware resources for the user experience rather than as a hot box for holding every dll ever made?

"unnecessary complexity"????"

If you are talking about assigning specific roles to PCs, e.g. having a PC act only as a cash register (housed in cash register body), then I agree with you that it makes sense. But MS has had an answer to this called Windows embedded. With Windows embedded, you can use only the components of Windows that you need to support your dedicated application(s). If however you are going to be addressing general purpose computers, it is far simpler for customers to have a broad, minimum set of functionality installed initially on their computers, so that they won't have to be continually installing new OS components, whenever they install new applications. You wonder why Windows is so big? That is the reason. Quite frankly, MS' solution of allowing ultra portable PCs to run an older version of Windows (Win XP) is a good one. If MS tried to lop off too much functionality off of Vista to have the OS run on ultra portable PCs, the company would probably run into a lot of customer complaints that certain Windows applications won't run on their devices.

Here's a good read, P. Douglas,

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/2008/05/03/dlclaud103.xml

It's obvious you want very badly for Microsoft to stay as it always was, but that's not in the plan.

IBM and Google teaming up to bring desktops to business (they're talking about any kind of desktop you want in any style any flavor tailored to your vertical and a minimal burden on the client) have Microsoft by the guacamoles and they're only now begun to put on the big squeeze.

The pincher on the pookies.

Sitting on the twins.

Ah well. Long night. Do some reading and we'll talk about why the world is going on the way IBM and Google are going and why Microsoft is being left to their own stew. And so quickly...

portuno said:
"It's about getting the appropriate usefulness out of a system for the least money and greatest flexibility. As you've said, the world has already moved in that direction. The desktop and the laptop are the last to move."

@portuno:
The desktop and laptop are not the last to move and won't likely move completely. There will always be value in having all the power sitting directly in front of you and in your hot little hands and your hands alone.

Why? Many reasons. The raw power needed for serious hi-res photo and high-def video processing. Serious software development, including--but by no means limited to--the development of those back-end SaaS servers. Freedom from the dictates of those at Google (web access to gmail really falls flat on its face at times) and IBM (not all of us need those overpaid under-brained Peter-Principled bureaucrats telling us what our clients should look like). Desktop flight simulation. High-performance gaming (though I personally am not drawn to this arena, I cannot deny that many find it compelling and absolutely necessary).

The world is moving to thin and non-PC clients, but desktop and laptop PCs will remain and will always be valuable. What I think you are really trying to say is that they will represent a smaller percentage share of the overall personal computing landscape, and they they will become less dominated by evil monopolies. And if so, I fully agree with you. But "fat PC clients" won't go away, they will remain valuable in many areas, and those who use them will be the elite--many of whom will be building the new thin world--and not extinct dinosaurs.

Just as the world is moving to higher efficiency transportation, but $60 million dollar long-range private jets continue to sell like those proverbial hotcakes even though they gobble more fuel idling in the run-up area waiting for take-off clearance than a hybrid Honda or Toyota automobiles likely burns in an entire year.

Philosopher

I agree with you about fat client PCs, but I disagree with you about devices supposedly having a thin client architecture. The applications you find on phones tend to be local, connected applications. The way you can tell, is that when you don't have a connection to a phone network, the applications are still there. Usually the only thin applications you find on phones are web sites in web browsers. Therefore phones actually employ a software + services architecture. Also, the release of the iPhone's SDK, is expected to result in a lot of locally installed software of various kinds, which connect up to the Internet.

The same is basically true for virtually all the other devices you mentioned. Virtually all the devices you mentioned, contain embedded local software, that sometimes connect up to the Internet.

@ Philosopher
Nothing ever disappears entirely and everything falls on its face at some time or other.

The qualities available per imposed economic requirements are the driving factors in adoption. A fat client may be a great thing to have, but its future will be determined by the way in which the limiting factors are mitigated.

Fat clients are not portable (unless you have a backpack). They are not inexpensive (unless you consider having your own computing resources is an unavoidable cost of doing business – THIS is where a large portion of the user communities will part ways). They are not secure (the attempt to be all things to all users in a local box makes them vulnerable targets – the only reason Apple and Linux escape is they have been historically smaller opportunities than Microsoft). They encourage forced replacement cycles (another huge reason for the computing community at large to consider getting rid of them). They encourage opportunistic bundling (which is a great way to be forced into lock-in with mediocre products attached like parasites to successful products).

The list can go on and on. The same problems mainframes were tagged with in the 80’s may be found easily applied to the desktop today.

No, fat clients won’t go away entirely. But I would argue the impact on the fat client landscape will be enormous and companies that now depend on those boxes pitched to the general purpose OS market for their futures (microsoft, apple, linux) will go through some large evolution unless they want to become another forgotten brand name.

Kurt Vonnegut wrote about his days writing publicity releases for GE and tells of a cartoon : "One cartoon was of two guys in the office of a buggy whip factory. A chart on the wall showed their business had dropped to zero. One guy was saying to the other, “It can’t be our product’s quality. We make the finest buggy whips in the world.”

You can still buy buggy whips and the buggy proponents can still argue there’s a place for the product. Let’s face it, Farmer Brown would look pretty damn stupid sitting there behind his horse throwing spitballs at old Dobbin trying to get him to haul the buggy to the market.

Still, buggy whips were a household commodity until the arrival of the horse-less carriage. Immediately after that invention was available to the average guy, the uselessness of buggy whips made owning one a ready indication the owner was out of touch with modernity.

“It can’t be our product’s quality. We make the finest operating systems in the world.”
I hear that same confident assertion from Microsoft, Apple and Linux advocates as they argue about whose OS is "best".

The answer is NONE of them are best. They are general purpose aggregations of numerous functions; many of which have no real relevance to 90% of computers uses, yet, today you can't get one without all the other.

The BEST OS is one that meets the requirements immediately at a low cost (low total burden to the user) with no residual commitments to hamper future uses of a different “Best OS” in a different user scenario.

The future of the web is providing ever-increasing jolts of sensual stimulation to an ever-more-poorly-paid and ever-less-educated army of drones enslaved by an ever-fewer number of ever-larger corporations. Eventually, though, there'll be a massive chain-reaction traffic accident caused by all of them driving ever-faster in their ever-more-bloated SUV's toward their soul-destroying fifty-cents-an-hour jobs while texting, playing games and watching movies at the sane time on the new multiple-desktop eyeball implants. This will probably start somewhere around Orlando, but will spread like wildfire as as-yet-unaffected drones begin to twitter and email each other about it. The only survivors will be the few "web pundits" actually stuck in an office, pounding out their latest pontifications about the recent merger between Micronux and Yahoogle. Then they will begin to eat each other.

The entire event from Microsoft's point of view must be somewhat like the deal the Roman General Flavius Aëtius cut with the Vandals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandals
"...Roman General Flavius Aëtius, in vying for power, convinced Galla Placidia (Mother of the child Roman Emperor Vallentinian III) that her General Boniface was plotting to kill her and her son to claim the throne for himself. As proof, he implored her to write him a letter asking him to come to Rome and she would see that Boniface would refuse. At the same time Aëtius sent Boniface a letter stating that he should disregard letters from Rome asking him to return for they were plotting to kill him. When Boniface saw the letter from Rome, and believed there was a plot to kill him, he enlisted the help of the Vandal King Geiseric. He promised the Vandals land in North Africa in exchange for their help. However, once it was known that the whole thing was a plot (by Aëtius), and Boniface was once again in Rome's favour, it was too late to turn back the Vandal invasion."

"...too late to turn back the vandal's invasion..."

Indeed.

Hmmm... The browser is the new OS. OK - answer this:

* For businesses running Exchange, do you spend most of your day in Outlook Web Access or the Outlook rich-client?

The answer is: It depends on:
* The system you are working on (desktop/laptop)
* The location (connected to your corporate network or not)
* Connection speed
* etc.

In some cases, you will always use Outlook the rich client. In some caes, you will use Outlook web access.

What is the point? Ask yourself, which one you prefer. I personally prefer the Outlook rich client - it is faster (all data is local) and I get more work done. When I on another system, I will use OWA.

This is NOT an either/OR discussion - it is about what do you need to get your work done. Of course that doesn't make for exciting headlines...