MICROSOFT Windows seems to move an inch for every time that Mac OS X or Linux laps it, writes Randall Stross, an author based in Silicon Valley and a professor of business at San Jose State University. He says the best solution to the multiple woes of Windows is starting over. Completely. Now. If you're wondering why such a scathing attack, just looks at Vista, which is the equivalent, at a minimum, of Windows version 12 — preceded by 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, NT, 95, NT 4.0, 98, 2000, ME, XP. After six years of development, the longest interval between versions in the previous 22-year history of Windows, and long enough to permit Apple to bring out three new versions of Mac OS X, Vista was introduced to consumers in January 2007. And the reaction from I.T. professionals and consumers was – and still is – simply: That's it? Looking ahead, there's little hope of a radical change in the next Windows version, the internal codename for which is “Windows 7”, which is supposed to arrive in or around early 2010. e “7” (The “7” refers to nothing in particular, a company spokeswoman says. ) Confirming this last week, Bill Veghte, a Microsoft senior vice president, sent a letter to customers saying, “Our approach with Windows 7 is to build off the same core architecture as Windows Vista so the investments you and our partners have made in Windows Vista will continue to pay off with Windows 7.” Stross blames it all on accumulated complexity as Microsoft tries to support 22 years of legacies that prevent timely delivery of advances. Within Microsoft itself, he notes, some software engineers believe that problems like security vulnerabilities and system crashes can be fixed only by abandoning system design orthodoxy, formed in the 1960s and '70s, that was built into Windows. It appears that the problem is not located within the Windows group but in Microsoft's research arm, where scientists and their heretical thoughts are safely isolated. Stross says that the five-year-old research project called “Singularity”, which Microsoft publicly unveiled last April, “is nothing more than a neat academic exercise, not a glimpse of Windows 7.” “Singularity is not the next Windows,” Stross cites Rich Rashid, the company's senior vice president overseeing research, as saying. “Think of it like a concept car.” __
