Flutterby™! : Moving Microsoft forward

Next unread comment / Catchup all unread comments User Account Info | Logout | XML/Pilot/etc versions | Long version (with comments) | Weblog archives | Site Map | | Browse Topics

Moving Microsoft forward

2006-03-27 04:07:40.140169+00 by Dan Lyke 4 comments

From the comments at Mini-Microsoft: Vista 2007. Fire the leadership now!:

You know, I've pondered for years what MS would do in this situation, when it became clear that the OS was a complete train wreck.

Apple was able to buy NeXT, but MS has killed off all of their viable replacements. OS/2, BeOS, PenPoint? All strangled by MS's anti-competitive (and illegal) tactics.

So, here's the way out: MS should swallow real hard, ante up half of what they blew on Longwind, and buy an OS X license from Apple. That would be about $10B up-front, and a hefty royalty. MS would have to assume the burden of making it run on all the crapbox PCs out there, which have had all the quality squeezed out of them, due to MS's having sucked up the lion's share of the profit from all PCs for the last 20 years or so.

The benefit is that MS could finally ship a securable OS, and the users wouldn't have to lose countless hours trying to work around the malware. Meanwhile, the only semi-competent part of the company, the Mac Business Unit, would take the lead in Apps development.

[ related topics: Apple Computer Microsoft Software Engineering moron Work, productivity and environment Macintosh ]

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment Re: made: 2006-03-27 06:38:40.483513+00 by: Pete

Only if they get it off that wreck of a kernel.

#Comment Re: made: 2006-03-27 16:54:29.412855+00 by: Mark A. Hershberger

I'm no Microsoftie, but I could tear that statement apart. MS is to blame for the lack of quality in commodity PCs? Hardly!

Apple has a secure OS? Hardly.

If they move all their users to OSX, that would only decrease diversity and, in the long run, increase security problems while eliminating innovation.

But still, this could be a good thing for Linux on the desktop, so I think they should do it.

#Comment Re: made: 2006-03-27 17:48:36.768614+00 by: Dan Lyke

Pete: grin. I find it interesting that the best two kernels out there are both open source.

Mark, those appear to be application flaws. Although there's some social engineering one could do with the application exploit, I contend that those are less likely to become system level exploits than most of the equivalent Windows flaws. On the other hand, with the way most people run their computers I suppose the difference is academic.

But overall I liked that quote both for its wonderful hyperbole and its acknowledgement that Windows has been patch on top of kludge, and that with the advent of tools like WINE its becoming more possible to separate Microsoft[Wiki] applications from their operating system.

#Comment Re: made: 2006-03-27 18:13:13.173614+00 by: Mark A. Hershberger

Dan, many security exploits don't need kernel problems. See any outlook worm for an example.

Still, something like Wine on OSX/Intel might do the trick, eh? Someone should test it.