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Comment by sachinag | Hacker News Reader

I think they'll do it this time. They'll get the legacy stuff in a "blue box" (or was it yellow box) the same way that Mac OSX did. If they can make Office work, that's game, set, and match.

Look, the OSVs only choices are Windows and Ubuntu. Ain't no one going to try to sell Ubuntu to Enterprise Rent A Car (pick your old school, massive install of choice).

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This is exactly what they're going to do.

I think that we're all dismissing just how seriously game changing this might be. Microsoft has a bunch of really smart people sitting in Research working on this stuff.

Just think how cool this will be if they make a jump like the one that Apple made from OS 9 to OS X, and Apple made that jump with far less resources.

I think that we're all dismissing just how seriously game changing this might be.

whatever will be "game changing" in 2012, my guess is that it won't be a new version of windows, or any other desktop os

make a jump like the one that Apple made from OS 9 to OS X

yeah that was about the time apple nearly went under. how soon people forget

The jump from OS 9 to OS X did not happen when Apple nearly went under. It happened after sales had picked up again with the release of the iMac and similar hardware. Of course Apple at the time was nowhere near as profitable as it is today, but saying it "nearly went under" is an exaggeration. That happened in the years before Jobs returned and in the first two years or so of his return.

I personally don't see a desktop OS being "game changing" at this point anymore. We've pretty much figured out what we're going to be using desktop and laptop computers for by now.

But you're right in so far that Microsoft's all-important "legacy" stuff is by now so old it can easily be run in virtualization or even in emulation, so they're probably on the right track.

Are you implying that there isn't any game-changing areas of an OS anymore?

What about the WIMP (windows, icons, menus, pointer) interface?

What about cloud computing (as stated in the article)?

What about the future of the internet (call it web 3.0 or whatever)?

Looking at the timeline of operating systems and "game changing" improvements, I would imagine that it will continue to grow exponentially as it has been for the last ~30 years. Microsoft, Apple and Linux all have a great chance in contributing to these advances.

What about the WIMP

do i need to buy win7 to use this?

What about cloud computing

plays to the strengths of linux, not windows

What about the future of the internet

MOBILE. steve jobs is right on this one and msft will end up having an even larger "skunk works" project to try to catch the iphone

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