| Dear Mr. Gates: save Vista, open-source it |
Apr. 13, 2007
Although Microsoft may claim otherwise, Vista, from both from a technical and business point of view, is proving to be a failure. Why not turn it over to people who have shown time after time that they can deliver the goods?
Let's look at the facts, shall we?
Microsoft claimed that more than 20 million copies of Windows Vista were sold around the world in February 2007, its first full month of sales. I, and many others, don't believe those claims for a minute. What's a lot more important than what I think though is what Goldman Sachs, the international investment bank, thinks. And, Goldman Sachs thinks that Microsoft is no longer worthy of being on its must buy "conviction list."
Why? Goldman analyst Sarah Friar in a research note wrote, "Product upgrade cycles should provide strong revenue and profit growth in the next 12-plus months. Normally, this would make us view the stock as a must-own. At the same time, these launches may also mark the end of an era, as changing technology and business models seek to diminish Microsoft's hold on the desktop, which in turn significantly depletes the cash cow."
Besides, maybe Vista won't do that well anyway. "Investor nervousness remains high, particularly given uncertainty regarding spending plans in 2008 and recent negative management comments on Vista." Negative management comments? Why yes, Microsoft's own CEO Steve Ballmer warned analysts that "some of the Windows revenue forecasts I've seen are overly aggressive.''
Looking ahead, Goldman also sees, "Changing technology and business models in areas such as software-as-a-service, virtualization and open source seek to diminish Microsoft's stranglehold on the desktop, which in turn significantly depletes the company's cash cow."
Even sites that work to promote Microsoft's products, like Redmond Channel Partner senior editor Lee Pender have admitted that "For now, though, Vista has to be a disappointment. Given how long it took to release and how much of a financial boost Microsoft needs from it right now, Vista just isn't building the momentum or gaining the kind of market traction that Redmond would like to see. Maybe the main problem with Vista is that XP is actually too good -- or at least too mature and familiar. Those stringent Vista hardware requirements don't help, either. And despite the half-a-billion dollars Microsoft is spending to promote Vista, the new OS hasn't exactly captured the public's imagination."
He won't get any argument from me. I've been dismissive of Vista's chances in the marketplace for some time now. It's more than just poor business execution, Vista has major technical problems. For example, as Microsoft blogger Mary Jo Foley points out, we all know now that Vista's Fast Boot feature is actually a bad joke.
Other users have found that even some of Vista's "features" are actually annoyances. Even Windows fans, such as noted blogger and former TechTV host Chris Pirillo, have given up on Vista. What I find most troubling about Vista's future is that after all those promises of how much better Vista's security will be, now we're finding out that Vista security is just as lousy as the rest of the Windows family.
I predicted that Vista would have serious security problems from the start, but I find this current crop of problems -- the ANI cursor mess and the three CSRSS (Client/Server Runtime Server Subsystem) bugs -- especially disturbing. That's because these are problems that are common to the entire Windows family. Vista was supposed to be all new and all better. Yeah. Right.
CSRSS is an essential subsystem of Windows that manages most Windows graphical commands. It wasn't rewritten. ANI, on the other hand, is a trivial program that animates cursors. It wasn't rewritten either. So what are we to think? After years of work, after years of being told Microsoft was making security job one, Windows users are stuck with the same old, same old when it comes to security.
I have a modest suggestion. Since Microsoft can't fix the buggy old code under Vista's pretty new Aero exterior, why not open-source it and let free software developers do the job for them. I'm serious.
Open-source software has its bugs too, but generally speaking open-source developers fix their programs' security in hours to weeks. Microsoft? Please. Months can go by before security holes are fixed and, in the meantime, crackers create so-called zero-day attacks to exploit long-known security problems.
Besides, as I've pointed out before, Windows is fundamentally flawed because even Vista is based on a single user PC operating system that's trying to work in a world where all computers are networked to all other computers.
I first saw this kind of problem back in 1992 with Windows for Workgroups, and 15 years later security holes showing that basic flaw are still showing up. This gives an even stronger reason to sic the open-source developers on Windows. Look at Linux. Without the advantage of having any of Unix's source code, Linus Torvalds created an open operating system that also freed itself of many of the problems that came with the earlier Unix distributions.
After all, if Linux wasn't better than SCO OpenServer and a host of other now long forgotten x86 based Unixes such as Consensys, Interactive, UHC, Microport and Univel, we'd still be talking about Unix instead of Linux as competition for Windows.
Since Microsoft's developers themselves are unhappy with how Vista had been developed and with the years of delay, why not try something different? Why not turn it over to people who have shown time after time that they can deliver the goods?
If Microsoft doesn't, I foresee Microsoft bowing to the inevitable and releasing Microsoft Linux in 2010. Hey, Oracle is giving its own house brand of Red Hat Linux a try. Why not Microsoft? After all, it's not like Microsoft can deliver a quality operating system.
-- Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
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