07/30/2008, 11:10pm, EDT
Wednesday, July 30th'Midori' to replace Windows as Microsoft's lead OS?
Microsoft is allegedly crafting a completely brand new operating system, completely removed from the Windows code base, as a way of beating the venerable operating system's bad rap. SDTimes writes the Redmond-based software developer is nurturing a project it calls Midori – a supposed offshoot of its Singularity operating system – for deployment on native x86-, x64-, and ARM-based systems, Windows Hyper-V hypervisors, or hosting by a Windows process.
Rob Helm, director of research for Directions on Microsoft, notes that it is "possible," having previously heard of a secret OS project headed by former Microsoft Servers and Tools vice president Eric Rudder. He continues, saying that the project is most likely conceptual at this point, but of a more serious nature than ideas tossed about at Microsoft Research.
The need stems from a vastly different modern-day computing scenario: users are increasingly spreading their work among local and remote computing devices, as well as the Internet's considerably larger, and more public, presence.
Midori's focus will be on concurrency – multiple sources accessing a centrally hosted "cloud" of applications, documents and services. According to the report, Midori will make use of a technology known as Asynchronous Promise Architecture, which will efficiently distribute applications across nodes.
Midori will also feature a different programming model ideal for addressing state management, by migrating APIs, apps, and developers to a constrained model.
Microsoft will allegedly position Midori as an answer to Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, which is expected some time within the next year. Midori has not yet been slated for release,.
Filed under: industry, software
Other story tags: Microsoft, Windows, Midori
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Bizarre
"Microsoft will allegedly position Midori as an answer to Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, which is expected some time within the next year."I find this a tad bizarre. Why should the largest OS company in the world (90% saturation levels) be preparing to answer an OS from a 4-8% market position? Shouldn't MS be calling the shots and setting the standards for everyone else to answer. It almost seems as they have been forced into this position. If that's so, rock on Apple.
ASA...
"Asynchronous Promise Architecture"...that pretty much defines Microsoft's business strategy. Each business unit announces "we'll have that in the next version of Win/WinServer/WinME/WinHome" whenever someone else announces something new and exciting. And it's all done without discussing what's possible with the other business units.
MS promises the sky, and delivers dirt.
"nurturing"?
"... the Redmond-based software developer is nurturing a project it calls Midori"
It's nurturing? Aha. Let me quickly run some numbers... yeah, if they're "nurturing" it now, we can expect a shipping product around 2016.
Cool.
Oh, really...
Wake me up if it ships.
It's a good idea...
for MS got back to scratch on the OS design. That said, I doubt it'll actually happen anytime soon. They will need years for the developer community to get used to it. Apple is basically able to say, "we're switching to to OSX so you'd better get used to it." Looking at the adoption rates of Vista, it doesn't look that way. Then again, there were compelling reasons to go to OSX. I don't see the same with Vista.The time lag between XP and Vista would have been a great opportunity to introduce a completely new OS. Generally, people are generally "happy" with XP. MS could have just continued to sell XP while getting the new OS up and running with the developer community.
nostalgia
Leave it to MS to bring back time-sharing as some kind of new concept. Or perhaps none of their so-called engineers have ever heard of that -- !
Cluster -- give me a break,
Doofuses.
EPIC FAIL
Isn't that what MS claimed about vista, (longhorn, or windows failure edition) about 7 years ago?
Rob Helm, director of research for Directions on Microsoft: "project is most likely conceptual at this point". Wow, announcing a concept now?
Perhaps someone got a old and outdated memo? LOL
Black Hole
" a supposed offshoot of its Singularity operating system –"
What an appropriate name for a M$ operating system, Black Hole.
Goliath
Wow, they had a perfect name-Vista. But now they can't use that because it tanked. So, will they actually drop the Windows name from it? I thought that was what they were going to do with Vista?
Yeah, I love the idea that this Goliath is worrying about lil ole David down there with his slingshot.
Goliath
Wait, I thought Vista was supposed to be Unix based like OS X? You mean all this time and crap and all they did was release another same ole Windows coded OS? Jeez, I've lost even more respect for them because they weren't even spending all this time on new code.