Category: Geeks r Us
Hi all,
well, I sometimes go on start buttons talking tech with sb on thursday night, and he was saying he heard vista was microsofts' last operating system. I hope what they were saying isn't true, because if so, the future of computing looks mighty grim indeed. Barry, the programs web master says he believes that software will be subscription based, which means you'd pay for the program as long as you were using it, then when you no longer need it or want it, you just uninstall it and stoppaying for it. Also, he thinks computers will go back to being like they were in the 70's where all you had was a dumb terminal. Please tell me this isn't so, because if this is true, computing life for us blind folk would be over for sure. If it got to the point where you had to pay for every software program you had as long as you were using it, I'd put my computer up for sale and be out of it for good. What do you think?
wonderwoman
I think you shouldn't believe everything you hear on the internet. While subscription based software is certainly growing in popularity, Microsoft is most definitely not going to just junk its multi-billion dollar (if not more) operating system investment and base of users.
well they're billionaires, so they could afford to, but I sincerely hope it doesn't go the way they were predicting. though i've never heard of things like thtat just going backwardd. although microsoft isn't perfect, it's the only operating system i know.
wonderwoman
If Microsoft would do that the software stocks would go to shit, and many would lose a lot more. Plus Bill Gates would never give up making hand over fist.
Well if they quit, then Mac would benefit even more.
But what I read above, it sounds kind of fishy.
It won't go back to terminal stuff even though this would be better for blind people; the sighted would just not by the software because they want little pictures that they can click so you would get the suply verses demmand situation that has been discused in the screenreader pricing topic.
Windows vista was i think targetted more at people that are buying a new computer as quite a few of the computers that run xp ok will not run vista aswell, with even less of them supporting there new airo graphics thingy.
the only time that it will become subscriptoin based (which i don't think it will) is when connections are so fast that indead all are machines are just terminals or thin clients that interface with servers that allow are machines to do vairius things, only when this happens would we be forsed to pay for what we use or how long or much we use it, and the only company that would do this is ms.
They'll do one more main os (not counting server oses) after vista and then i think there'll iether go or consontrate there efforts on things like the zune of the xbox or maybe make a zune phone.
I'll not go into the other operating systems like linux and i'm sure that someone will mension apple in more detail then it already has been.
BEN.
I couldn't imagine life without Microsoft. Like it says in my profile, I was born on the 4th of November, 1983, when there were just these online network terminal things as the world's first webpage wasn't invented or launched till January 1990 when I was just seven years old. I didn't even type on a computer/typewriter keyboard till I was in my last year of Primary School. (The teachers probably thought we didn't need it on top of learning Braille and all the other accademic subjects and stuff). Those were the days of the old BBC computers where we couldn't use Internet Explorer and stuff anyway, and you had those dreadful old apollo speech box things in place of screen-reading software packages like JAWS. I was first introduced to the internet when I was 16 and the head of IT adn New College Worcester (my secondary school) found a program called Webspeak which is a sort of Browsaloud software package that could access the internet. We didn't have it set up at home either, so it was a new and also quite an exciting and fun experience for me. I think the first webpage I looked at was a Harry Potter website, lollol. at College, I progressed to using JAWS for the first time and I didn't have to shut down the computer before keying in Control W to go online, and I've never, ever, looked back since that time. I dread to think what it would mean for us if the internet was scrapped, if and when Microsoft decided to call it a day.
No way! Microsoft will be there for us as long as we have $300 or more to drop on the next big operating system. Subscriptions are going to upset far to many people. I expect we are safe, and if worst comes to worst, there's always Linux and the Mac. Even if MS chose that road, many of those developing for it wouldn't, and its competitors certainly wouldn't. There is a place for subscriptions, but I don't believe the OS to be one of them.
Windows Vista is going to be very shitty until they get all the bugs out of it. When they start improving it in the next few years, then I'll be using it but as for right now, I wouldn't recommend anyone to get that new OS. And Microsoft isn't going anywear, there a good company. Who ever heard that about Microsoft, there probably lieing, or they heard it from someone else, or read it from an nonrelibal source.
Sounds like somebody is trying to increase listenership by spreading wild ass rumors.
Going back to terminals? What hogwash. They would last forever. And computer sales are to big a market for that to happen.
From a corporate standpoint you are never too rich. Therefore, microsoft will continue to make remakes of its operating systems until someone makes a better one than they have.
Bob
yeah i new bob would set a few things streight.
I do however see a short lived market for subscriptions though, i mean you get it now with things like rapidshare or what ever it is where you pay for storage and stuff like that.
When we all have t3 lines in are house, i'm sure someone will use are new speed to there advantage and have more or less thinclients but not for a longtime and there will be more useable and cheaper ulternatives.
BEN.
well, when someone on vipconduit made th ecomment about how he thought the subscription based thing was the solution, I thought, man, you'recrazy. I mean, you'd be paying for a program as long as you used it. and if you payed ten dollars a month for ten months, then didn't need it anymore, you still wasted $100. the only difference is youwould just be wasting it a litle bit at a time instead of wasting a whole lump sum. I think microsoft could break their microsoft office program down, for instance, instead of everyone having to but a whole suite of programs, they could just but whichever program they wanted or needed. Microsoft word might be nice, for instance, but I wouldn't pay $300 for a whole suite, just for microsoft word, when i don't need the calendar or the spreat sheet, and whatever else they have in there, which i forgot now. Of course they could still sell the suite for people who need the whole thing, but it would be nice for individuals who couldn't afford the whole thing and didn't need all of it to be able to purchase programs individually.
wonderwoman
WonderWoman, do you honestly think that Microsoft would stop putting out operating systems? They'll be in business, and continue to put out major software for ages yet. They'd be eternally stupid to make Vista their last operating system. Nothing was wrong with XP, but of course here comes Vista, because Microsoft had to find a way to keep bringing in money, not as if they need more of it.
I agree with Wonderwoman about office. I personally for example use only word and outlook.
But in England i got office for only 75 British pounds which is something like 120 dollars the most. But i got a student version of office which i don't know what difference it has from the original.
Also somebody said about operating sistems being 300 dollars but in October i got windows XP home edition for about 50 British pounds which is something like 80 or 90 dollars. Unless if vista is going to get cheeper in a few years time.
The student version is cheaper.
actually there's some truth in what wonderwoman is saying, although to say we'd be going back to terminals is putting it somewhat simplistically.
There's a lot of talk about microsoft and where its future lies, and also where the future of the computer lies, and it is true that vista is set to be either the last or penultimate operating system. however this does not mean the end of microsoft. The way that operating systems will work is essentially like this:
in an age where broadband is getting faster and faster, you would have access to a central server, here you would pay your subscription for whatever packages you needed to use eg word processing/spreadsheets etc. You would still have a personal computer and anything personal to you, documents/photos/video/music would be stored locally on your computer, but the actual platforms would be accessed centrally. The benefit of this would be that whenever updates need to be done eg patches to security etc, these would be done centrally without the user having to download and configure the update.
and of course microsoft would still be there, they would just change their focus from sending out cd's with programmes on them to managing central servers and raking in the subscriptions. And obviously as technology improves, so does accessibility, so I don't imagine users of accessible technology would be left out in the cold.
My husband works in IT and this is something that is quite widely speculated about, although not quite in the scaremongering way that was posted above.
That makes sense. Though I don't like it.
Bob
But computers wouldn't ship with drives in them to satisfey the controling side of ms.
Also look at this way, its going to be far less sicure.
Lets say that someone has the username andy and the password letmein.
Its going to be so much easeyer for a cracker to get into andies settings if they orthenticate themselves via a server isn't it?
Unless they do ip filtering, but i guess that it would only work if they were static, and even hardware cerial numbers can be spoofed along with things like mac addresses.
BEN.
sister dawn,
I was just repeating what one of the techs on vip said, I have no way of knowing whether it's fact or fiction.but its all the same anyway, i mean the next operating system is claimed to be better than its predecessor. 98 was better than 95, millennium was suppose to be better than 98, xp better than milennium, vista better than xp. and i suppose the next os after vista is suppose to be better than vista. If this computer lasts as long as my 95/98 machine, by the time this computer givesup, vista will be on the way out by then.
wonderwoman
Bob, #16, neither did Microsoft shareholders like it!
I attended a share trading seminar where the speaker cited the announcement by Microsoft that it would deploy its programs from massive servers, as an example of change of company policy meeting strong resistance.
Of course, this was a minor setback for Ms whose share price recovered quickly and continued on to great heights...
I have also read that Vista will be the last major revision of the Windows Operating System. The article suggested that future changes would be introduced incrementally similar to the way security patches are installed now.
Just so everyone knows, Microsoft now is spending more money on their gaming line than anything else. .net did not work and their OS line is falling down before them, so they decided to base their entire market strategy on the xbox. Where do you think windows live comes from? If you have owned an xbox, you would know. The xbox online service is called Xbox Live, and has always been called that. This service keeps all user data on servers and works on a subscription. Now, all windows programs and services are switching to this method. You will turn on your computer and have basic access to your stuff. but to really do something, you will have to log in to windows live to work. Windows vista is built on this concept. Right now, vista works more like xp, but when windows live is fully launched, you will be seeing more subscriptions to do basic office work. I will admit this is a fairly ok method, but the current tech level of the internet is not ready to support such a load. This is why analysts think that this will be the last Microsoft OS. I would not be surprised if they just said screw the os, web, developer, and office market, because they are making more money on xbox consoles and games than any of those markets combined. Another thing that people are realizing, is that as an os, windows is very out dated. Linux and Apple Mac OS X have been able to do what windows vista can do for years. I am a mac user, and I have had the ability to do things like instant searches and all those cool things that vista can do now. However, I could do these things back when I got my first mac in 2005. I can also zoom the screen to 8x or even 20x for me to read it better, and the screen reader even rivals JAWS. I just finished training a friend on how to use a mac and she is totally blind. She now tells me she will not go back to a windows machine, and she does not have to. she just restarts her computer, holds a button and can select windows from her mac. She does not know why she would, but the option is there for if she wants to.Now do you understand why this will probably be the last windows release? no one wants to use an out dated os. More people are switching to macs every day. I went to the apple store to look at some stuff and saw 4 people walk out in to a mall carrying huge mac computers. However, I will still go to Microsoft for all my gaming needs. Oh and I can't forget Nintendo, the wii rules!