Billy Boy's latest scheme to cash in big:

WINDOWS 2000 will be compliant - the catch is that you have to buy all new software! 80% of the code will be changed from Window NT.

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9902/19/win2000.idg/

-- (@@@.@), February 20, 1999

Answers

Maintaining backward compatibility is always a case of damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Trying to build a new OS so that it will do all new things, while still running existing code without surprises, leads to a huge, bloated, bug-infested conglomeration of kludges. Entirely too many features require mutually exclusive approaches, and there's no way to do all of them cleanly.

Creating a new OS with no concern for the existing installed base is an ivory tower exercise. Nobody will use the OS until there are applications that run under it, and nobody will write those applications until enough of a market is using the OS to be able to sell them. You can't win.

Out of necessity, Microsoft seems to be splitting the difference. Most applications will work correctly most of the time, the upgrade path for those that won't work isn't too arduous, and only applies to improvements Microsoft hopes are clearly necessary.

You don't abandon older technologies lightly, especially when the installed base is huge. That's why our TV picture hasn't improved for 30 years since color TV arrived (and why the proposed HDTV sets are required to reproduce NTSC signals, making prototypes painfully expensive and seriously kludged).

Windows 2000 isn't a scheme to cash in big, so much as it's a matter of biting the bullet and taking the hit. It takes courage to do that. Whether it was wisdom remains for the market to determine.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), February 20, 1999.

Maintaining backwards compatability (and established customer base) is what got us into this miserable mess.

-- dave (wootendave@hotmail.com), February 20, 1999.

They don't call it "Microshaft" for nothing!

-- Hutch (ghutch1@hotmail.com), February 20, 1999.

Microsoft are finished anyway.

Linux has > 10 million users.

Linux installations are currently increasing at 40 % per year.

Linux is many times more stable and secure than NT.

Linux has been Y2K compliant since it was conceived in the early '90s.

IBM, Corel, Oracle and Informix areactively supporting Linux.

Microsoft will lose the antitrust case due to it's past actions.

-- (free@the.source.com), February 20, 1999.

If I wasn't getting ready to retire (with or without the impetus of Y2K), I would looking into Linux.

-- vbProg (vbProg@MicrosoftSucks.com), February 20, 1999.

Forward-thinking geeks will be getting into Linux. It's open source, virtually crash-proof, keeps getting better, has current applications, and will have more. The developer of the first working GUI for Linux will cash in big. Or if not, will have the satisfaction of sinking Gates' ship.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), February 20, 1999.

From another thread---- Re: Linux

Japan has always lagged in software and Intellectual Property Rights but those days are changing - and fast. The major hardware manufacturers hired some sharp kids (and many have been hiring only systems and software grads for two years now) and the work they're doing now may throw Silicon Valley into a tailspin. I expect it to be similar to to the impact Japanese cars had on the U.S. auto industry in the 70's. Quality is the key. Look at the makeup of the auto market now and transfer that image to the software market of the future.

The U.S. software dominance and free ride on atrocious quality and instability is almost over. The programmer community and end users will react just they did to Japanese cars (my projection only). It's going to be an exciting time.

Linux is getting alot of attention throughout Asia and the current work here on slim, fast and clean GUI's for Linux will shock some sleepy people in the U.S. Linux was the window of opportunity to battle Windows and NT. The opportunity was and is being taken.

-- PNG (png@gol.com), February 21, 1999.

End of the Micro$oft era ? Jon Katz thinks so too. Here's an article by him in the SJ Mercury http://www.mercurycenter.com/opinion/perspective/docs/katz21.htm

-- (free@the.source.com), February 22, 1999.