Microsoft Considers Reinventing MS Windows

[crustyasp46]

Microsoft is reportedly working on a brand new edition of Windows specially designed specifically for tablet devices. The goal would be to overcome battery life problems with existing portable Windows machines.



The key to the new edition would be how it interacts with the processor. The CPU (or "processor") is the the chip in any computing device that carries out calculations and processes information. There are two main types of processors in common use for portable devices: Intel's x86 architecture and the ARM chip. The two chips are very different inside, which means that the operating system has to be specially written to fit the architecture.

Battery Life An Issue For Most Mobile Devices

The full-blown version of Windows runs on the x86 chips, which are present in virtually all Windows-compatible PCs. However, most smartphones run ARM chips. That's because ARM uses less power, thus extending battery life. The downside of ARM is that systems running on it can't run full-blown multitasking operations, in which two or more applications can be active at the same time. (Source: wsj.com)

Historically, that's not been a problem for mobile devices. When it comes to phones, size and battery life is more important, and users have lower expectations about what a smartphone can do.

That's changed, however, with the iPad and the subsequent explosion of interest in tablet devices. With many buyers thinking of such devices as more of a slimmed-down portable computer than an oversized smartphone, manufacturers have to make difficult decisions about how to deal with the limitations of such a device.

In Apple's case, the decision was to use an ARM chip and get the maximum battery life, while using a "workaround" version of multitasking: in most cases applications that are "out of sight" aren't technically active, but rather frozen in the background of the operating system.

Reinventing Windows Likely Problematic

Freezing a process just isn't viable with current Windows devices. Because users expect the Windows experience to largely replicate a desktop or notebook computer, many manufacturers have stuck to x86 processors, with the result that battery life is usually quite limited.

If reports are true, Microsoft will be working on a dedicated edition of Windows that will be specially designed to run on ARM chips without sacrificing functionality. Though the firm may show the technology off at next month's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, it could be two years before such a system is complete. By that time, it may be too late. (Source: bloomberg.com)

Reading the last line of this report, I wonder with all the money they have made over the years, has Microsoft days, been and gone, they seem of late to be playing catchup, in the technical market on very many fronts, instead of being innovators. Too many jaded fat cats, who have lost vision of the future ?

[Hot Trout]

Microsoft got too comfortable as the worlds provider of OS and Desktop Apps. You have to admit that 5 years ago it looked impossible to topple them. Things have changed rapidly though and Microsofts inability to gain any real foothold in the search engine market has seen them slip behind the likes of Google.

That said only a fool would write them off. Microsoft have huge resource and ability to bring product to the market quickly. BING is a success and is easily no 2 search engine in the world. Windows 7 has been an excellent success and once again secured them as the main provider of OS to business and home alike. The new Windows Mobile is also being received to great aclaim and looks like at long last they have a real contender in the mobile market.

Time will tell, but it looks like at long last, Google have a real competitor in their sector.

[crustyasp46]

Microsoft at CES: Put Up or Shut Up Time on Tablets

At the Computer Electronics Show this week in Las Vegas, Microsoft has an opportunity to start the year off right and curtail the negativity that has been nipping at the software giant.
That's a lot to ask of one show given how much negativity is hurled at Microsoft, but it's the biggest show around and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has the keynote again. Here he can finally lay out Microsoft's roadmap for tablet PCs and explain how Windows (both 7 and the pending 8) will run on them.

During last year's CES's keynote, Ballmer briefly displayed some "slates" running Windows 7, and then spent the rest of 2010 more or less avoiding the subject.
That obviously can't happen this year, not with Apple's iPad quick rise to dominance in the nascent tablet PC market, which is starting to spill over from the consumer space into enterprises. Apple hasn't released holiday season iPad sales numbers yet, but market researchers forecast between 8 and 9 million in iPad sales for 2010 and more than double that for 2011.
So Microsoft has some explaining to do and an ideal forum in which to do it. So what is Ballmer likely to cover in his keynote address?

[Kherr]

What microsoft needs to do is make their next windows release in Unix. That way they could implement something such as SELinux for defense. Then, theoretically, the virus makers wouldn't be so keen to make more viruses because then they themselves would be susceptible to becoming a victim of a virus attack.