Comments on: "Windows as We Know It Must Be Replaced." Well, There's a Truism if I Ever Heard One http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20080411/windows-gartner/ by John Paczkowski Sun, 22 Nov 2009 23:28:08 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Mac Beach http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20080411/windows-gartner/comment-page-1/#comment-1255 Mac Beach Fri, 11 Apr 2008 18:19:40 +0000 http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20080411/windows-gartner/#comment-1255 Back when MS first stole, and subsequently purchased VMS and it's authors from DEC, Windows ran on several hardware platforms. In fact it was a trade show where I saw Windows NT running on an IBM laptop with an early version PowerPC in it that I decided Windows was worth considering as a serious OS. Even IBM at the time was preparing (or at least they said they were) to run some server version of Windows on their mainframes. War over. I've yet to figure out, short of some illegal back-room nod-and-wink deal, why it was in Microsoft's interest to so quickly go from there to Intel-only. Since then, MS and Intel have played a profitable version of Pong with their customers with each new version of Windows needing exactly the latest level of hardware from Intel to work properly, forcing users to upgrade perfectly good hardware to remain on a supported OS. Fortunately, that game is coming to an end, no thanks to enforcement of US laws, but rather to a world economy that doesn't want to be held similarly hostage to the whims of these two companies who have sucked the air out of the room when it comes to US innovation. Back when MS first stole, and subsequently purchased VMS and it’s authors from DEC, Windows ran on several hardware platforms. In fact it was a trade show where I saw Windows NT running on an IBM laptop with an early version PowerPC in it that I decided Windows was worth considering as a serious OS. Even IBM at the time was preparing (or at least they said they were) to run some server version of Windows on their mainframes. War over.

I’ve yet to figure out, short of some illegal back-room nod-and-wink deal, why it was in Microsoft’s interest to so quickly go from there to Intel-only.

Since then, MS and Intel have played a profitable version of Pong with their customers with each new version of Windows needing exactly the latest level of hardware from Intel to work properly, forcing users to upgrade perfectly good hardware to remain on a supported OS.

Fortunately, that game is coming to an end, no thanks to enforcement of US laws, but rather to a world economy that doesn’t want to be held similarly hostage to the whims of these two companies who have sucked the air out of the room when it comes to US innovation.

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