The future of operating systems
There are some good questions asked on Information Week today: where are operating systems headed, and is Vista the last version of Windows?
The article asks many questions but doesn’t give many answers. The main point the author is missing out on here is the web. Call it Web 2.0 or just call it the web, it’s grabbed us by the throat and it won’t let go. Yes, there’s still all your hardware and offline software and virtualization and Linux and million other things to consider.
But if you want to get to the core of things, you need to ask yourself: what is your computer worth nowadays without access to the web? For me, very little. A computer without the web is an empty shell. If you’re old enough, try remembering the time before the internet, and try imagining going back to it. It’s not in the same league. It’s not even the same sport. The computer, as a concept, is not just a very good calculator and a slightly more advanced typing machine any more. It’s about networking. If it’s not connected to other computers, you might as well throw it away.
And this is the main problem the operating systems are having today. The spotlight is not on them anymore. Whether I have a Mac, or Windows, or a Linux box is not that important anymore. I bet I could do all the stuff that I do now on any of these three platforms, although it’s been years since I’ve last really used a *nix, and I’ve never used the Mac for work. This is because everything I do is connected with the web, and lately lot of my work is on the web. As I’ve said in my last article on Vista, most of the software I really need is available on any platform, because it’s web-based.
Tim O’Reilly gives much attention to the definition of Web 2.0. One of the concepts he emphasizes a lot is that Web 2.0 applications use web as a platform. This is a very important notion. These new applications aren’t working on any particular OS - they’re working on the internet. I would even dare to predict that the current state of affairs is just a crude image of what’s to come. This is where the critics of WebOSes are wrong - they say, it’s not an OS if it runs only in Firefox. Even more naive piece of criticism is: “but what if you’re offline?“. There is no offline any more. Offline is history, and we’re never coming back to it. Firefox or IE or Safari are minor details that aren’t important here. The attempt to have your stuff, your work, whatever you do, online - this is the main idea. Someone will develop a better web platform for WebOSes in the future.
So, you got to ask yourself: how important is Vista, or Mac OS X, or Linux, or any other OS? Sure, the OS does control your hardware, and it does a zillion other things, but how many of those things are crucial for you? Really, really crucial? Unless you’re a gamer, or an IT professional with a very specific task to do, probably not many. The operating system is becoming a tool that’s important only to specialists. The casual user’s operating system is the internet.
This is the paradigm shift. The critics don’t see it, thinking that Web 2.0 is just another bubble waiting to burst. But many of them don’t understand the consequences of Web 1.0, although they’re already here. That’s why they still think in terms of “offline” and “online”. I’ll repeat once more: there is no offline anymore. This is what the internet gave us. Web 2.0 is just the moment when we stopped using computers and started using the internet.
To illustrate why OSes are inevitably losing relevance, you just need to remember what an OS is. The OS is a link between you and your hardware. Nothing more, nothing less. Similarly, the steering wheel and the command panel in your car is the link between you and the car’s hardware. Are you going to get excited about it? If you’re a car enthusiast, sure. But if you’re just a casual user, you just want your car to get you from here to there without problems. When you fire up your computer, you want your OS to get you to the Internet. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs know this already, that’s why they’re making the OS as simple and user-friendly as possible.
But, they’ve underestimated the Internet. The Internet is taking over. It’s a very big computer and everything you need is in it, and your little computer is just a terminal that connects you to it. It’s not You - Your Computer - Your Stuff - Internet - Others. It’s You - Your Computer - Internet - Your Stuff - Others. This subtle change that is happening right now is pushing the OS into the back seat, and it will never recover, unless it is reborn on the web.
The operating system, as it stands now, is not obsolete, but it’s not all that important either. If users aren’t too thrilled about moving to Vista, I wouldn’t be surprised. Why would they? The excitement is on the Web, and the Web works just as well in Windows XP. If Microsoft makes another OS in 5 years and no one notices, I wouldn’t be surprised either. I don’t know what the OS creators are going to do, but my sole prediction for all operating systems is this: The ones that play nice with the Web will win. The others will be ignored and pushed aside.
February 9th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
Hey, this is a really insightful article! I’ve been blogging for a couple of years, but only recently started to pay attention to tech & web-related sites. I’m picking up things left and right and only now getting a glimpse of the real power of the Internet. And you’re helping there. And I agree with you. In the last two weeks or so, I’ve discovered a whole bunch of things that are strictly web — OSs have nothing to do with them. (On the other hand, maybe having the latest bells & whistles makes working the web more fun?)
February 10th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
I love the idea of “always connected” but it isn’t a reality in my life and I can’t see that it will be any time soon. When I’m at home/office I’m permanently connected, but as soon as I leave the picture changes. Here in Australia once you get out of any major city, getting broadband can be difficult and getting a Net connection using my mobile phone while travelling is expensive and slow.
We spent a few months in Europe in 2005 and trying to get on the Net each day to keep running our businesses was a painfull chore.
And even when you do get a high speed connection, latency and download speeds making using most Web Apps a painfull unproductive use of my time. And I’ve not even touched on the lack of features compared to similar desktop apps.
Bottom line is there is quite a way to go before I’ll be adopting Web apps into my daily life.
Oh and off-line is important otherwise so many folks wouldn’t be using my product, Surfulater http://www.surfulater.com
February 11th, 2007 at 9:03 pm
Great article on our first faltering steps into the true Information Age.
Indeed one can easily imagine accessing the net with a wireless connected, OS-transparent tablet in the near future…Macs are a good example of increased pc automation (”it just works”) in modern computing.
By the same token pc’s are becoming more specialized… but for a much smaller, more discerning/demanding cross section of society (gamers, other specialists).
February 12th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Great article! I have the same impression that the current OS is going to move towards the real Web OS. Replacing personal computers with Internet terminals has been discussed for many years. But it looks like that the emergence of Web 2.0 finally makes it true.
The transition from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 is the first major stage upgrade in the history of World Wide Web. Surely it will come Web 3.0 and maybe x.0. But this first version transition has already braught us so much suprising that we have never foreseen. I am currently write a web article about web evolution. Though it has not finished yet, you can find the first part here: http://www.deg.byu.edu/ding/WebEvolution/evolution-review.html
In Part 2, I am going to mention something about web OS and how it brings impacts to Web 2.0 and will bring more impacts to the later versions of World Wide Web. Any comments are very much welcomed.
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