Tag: software

Does Windows Vista need Beta 3?

Post ImageVia Scoble I came across a post by Robert McLaws, in which he states that Windows Vista simply isn’t ready to be released. He suggests that the team add a third beta and push the launch back another four to six weeks:

I’ve been defending Microsoft’s ship schedule for Windows Vista for quite some time. Up to this point, I’ve been confident that Vista would be at the quality level it needs to be by RC1 to make the launch fantastic. Having tested several builds between Beta 2 and today, I hate to say that I no longer feel that way.

Beta 2 was a disappointment on many levels. It was nowhere near as stable as it should have been, and was a huge memory hog. Later builds have improved stability and performance, and have introduced visual tweaks and enhancements that make Vista feel more like a finished product. But several events are conspiring to make life a lot more difficult for beta testers, and I forsee problems if they are not addressed.

He then goes on to detail each of the problems.

I’ve always been in the “don’t ship until it’s ready” camp, so I agree with Robert. I haven’t been testing Windows Vista (though I did install Beta 2 onto a virtual machine) so I can’t chime in with my own experiences, but Robert is an expert, he knows what he’s talking about. Additionally, he isn’t the only one sounding the warning bell – remember Chris Pirillo’s crazy interface posts?

When I get the final version of Windows Vista, I want it to blow me away. I want it to be the best version of Windows I have ever laid eyes on. I want it to be quick, responsive, and pleasantly surprising when I least expect it. I want it to be a solid, finished, and polished release. If adding another beta and delaying the launch is what it takes to get there, so be it.

Read: Robert McLaws

Opera plans for version 10

Post ImageJust weeks after officially launching Opera 9, the browser software company has already started sharing plans for the next version. Aside from the usual “we want to take market share from Internet Explorer”, one idea caught my eye:

There is also a big push in the company toward creating developer tools.

“We will be unleashing developer tools, which are still in the planning stages,” Ford said. “We want developers to use Opera as a Web development platform, using open standards. We need to keep the Web ready for open standards.”

I have been using Opera 9 as my primary browser on my tablet for about two weeks now. I find it very fast, and much easier on the memory than either Firefox or IE7. I have also been using Opera 9 on my desktop when developing websites, so any extra tools for web development would much appreciated! Opera is a great browser for testing websites, because if it works in Opera, it’ll likely work elsewhere too.

I would suggest giving Opera a try, just to see what else is out there. The only thing I still can’t get used to is clicking on the address bar to get to the Home button.

Read: CNET News.com

Immortalized in Firefox 2

Post ImageAs you might have heard, Firefox recently released a beta of the next version of their browser, code-named Bon Echo. Interestingly enough, they have also announced a program that would let you get your name right in the source code:

To commemorate the three-year anniversary of the creation of the Mozilla Foundation on July 15, the open-source group announced that if a Firefox user persuades a friend to download the browser, both the user and the friend’s names will be added to the source code of the next version of the browser, Firefox 2.0.

It’s an interesting marketing experiment, I’ll give them that much. Read that article, and then read Jeremy Wright’s post titled Firefox Copying IE. What Jeremy has to say is dead on, Firefox 2 probably isn’t worthy of a complete 2.0 release. I’ve been critical of Firefox on this blog and elsewhere recently, and this only adds to my feelings. Perhaps the Firefox team should be focusing on creating an incredible next version rather than one full of people’s names.

Read: CNET News.com

Internet Explorer 7 Beta 3 Released

Post ImageMicrosoft today released Beta 3 of Internet Explorer 7. The main changes are around the user interface, though there are also improvements to tabs, RSS feeds, and security. You’ll have to uninstall any previous versions of IE7 before installing the new beta. According to IE General Manager Dean Hachamovitch, this is the last beta version, meaning we’ll see only release candidates until IE7 goes gold.

There’s a great overview of the interface changes up at the IE Blog. The stop, refresh, and search buttons have all been lightened, which is good as they don’t clash as much now. There’s horizontal lines separating the links toolbar from the rest now too! I don’t remember if Beta 2 had it, but when you type a URL in the address bar, the refresh button changes to become a “Go” button with an arrow. They have finally made the awkward image zooming from IE6 much easier to use as well.

And my favorite change? You can now drag and drop tabs to reorder them! I wish Firefox had this feature too, it’s so useful when you’ve got a lot of tabs open at once. IE7 isn’t the first to have this feature though, Opera 9 has tab reordering as well.

Read: Internet Explorer 7 Beta 3

The Media Delayed Windows Vista

Post ImageI’ve been reading a lot lately about why people think Windows Vista has been delayed so many times. There tends to be a set of consistent theories that always appear in a discussion, which I’ll summarize here:

  • The software is too complex, with too many interdependencies that are confusing or not understood very well.
  • There is too much bureaucracy and too many levels of management which slows down the development process.
  • Microsoft started sharing information about Vista far too early which led to unreasonable expectations for the end product.

I think there is definitely some truth to all of these different theories, but I have another one. I think another significant reason Windows Vista has been “delayed” is the media. With all of the media coverage everytime there’s a change in the Vista release schedule, one can’t help but think that something must be horribly wrong for the operating system to have been delayed. I mean it makes CNN for crying out loud! Consider the following two things:

  • The average user still doesn’t really have a clue what Windows Vista is. They are pretty happy using whatever operating system they are currently using. I see this all the time when I help people with their computers and start talking up a feature of Vista. (And no, this doesn’t mean that we don’t need a new version, for the same reason that Ford still manufactures a new version of the F-150 every year.)
  • Despite all of the fanboys, the other operating systems haven’t done anything particularly special since Windows XP was released. The various Linux distros are still emulating Windows. Mac OS X has some excellent eye candy, but doesn’t stand out in any other way. Of course those last two statements are just my personal opinion, but proof is in the numbers – neither Linux nor Mac OS X have taken market share away from Windows (at least in the consumer space). People are not breaking down the doors of Best Buy to purchase a Mac.

Which means what? Basically, I would argue that if the media didn’t report on every single schedule change, most people could care less if Windows Vista was released in 2006 or 2008. With no pressure from rival operating systems, and the only loud customer request being security (which was the reason XP SP2 was such a big deal) there really isn’t a huge reason for Vista to be delivered right away, and thus no reason for anyone to be up in arms about it being delayed.

Keep in mind that this theory about the media being a reason that Vista has been delayed is largely focused on the consumer/business side of things. Developers, hardware manufacturers, and of course Microsoft’s shareholders all have good reasons for wanting the OS to come faster. I think I have a valid point though.

Gates to become part-time Microsoft employee

Post ImageBill Gates announced today that over the next couple years he will gradually move away from his full-time duties at Microsoft, after three decades of serving as the public face of the company. Not too surprising a move, as far as I am concerned. Gates is 50 now, with young children, lots of money, and the right people at Microsoft to take it forward:

Gates announced on Thursday that he will gradually relinquish his current role, ceding the chief software architect title immediately, while remaining a full-time employee for the next two years. In July 2008, he will remain as a part-time employee and chairman.

Microsoft’s Chief Technical Officer Ray Ozzie will immediately assume the title of chief software architect, Gates said. In addition, Craig Mundie, CTO for advanced strategies and policy, will immediately take the new title of chief research and strategy officer and will assume Gates’ responsibilities for the company’s research and incubation efforts.

If there was ever a question as to why Microsoft purchased Groove, that has surely been answered now. They didn’t buy the company, they bought Ray Ozzie. He’s clearly the strategy guy moving forward.

I think this is good for Gates and for Microsoft. He can spend more time with his family and his non-profit, while Microsoft can start to bring in fresh and different ideas. He won’t be gone entirely, which is good, remaining as company chairman.

Read: CNET News.com

Windows Live Dev

Post ImageFinally. Finally. That’s really all I have to say about it. If there is one thing missing from Windows Live, it’s that Microsoft basically ignored their primary and most strategic audience – developers. Well, until now that is:

Microsoft Chief Technical Officer Ray Ozzie on Sunday said the company is creating Internet-delivered services for corporate customers to complement its on-premise software.

Ozzie, speaking at Microsoft’s TechEd 2006 conference for business technology users, described some of the online services Microsoft intends to offer to businesses, including single sign-on and network management.

As a result, we now have Windows Live Dev. I’m going to dive into it a little further this week, and hopefully they say something about it tomorrow at realDEVELOPMENT_06. Sadly, the SDK I most want to use is not yet available (Windows Live ID).

Read: CNET News.com

Windows Vista Torrent

Post ImageHaving trouble downloading Vista Beta 2, but don’t want to wait for the DVD? Well now you don’t have to. Microsoft refused to offer Vista Beta 2 via BitTorrent citing problems with ensuring that users end up with genuine software. It’s really not that hard, especially for the techy types who use BitTorrent. Thus, Chris Pirillo and Jake Ludington have created Windows Vista Torrent:

The only official tracker for this torrent is found here at VistaTorrent.com. We’re providing an MD5 hash to verify the file after download to make sure you’re getting the real thing. If the torrent URL is anything other than the one from Vistatorrent.com, don’t download or install the file! We’re staking our reputations on providing a clean ISO torrent here. There is no registration required to download this torrent.

That should help matters! So fire up your BitTorrent clients and enjoy Vista Beta 2 goodness. Assuming there are no major problems as a result of this site, I’d say its a safe bet that Microsoft will more seriously consider BitTorrent support in the future.

Read: TechCrunch

WinFX renamed .NET Framework 3.0

Post ImageIn a fairly quiet announcement, made on a blog (noteworthy all by itself!), Microsoft has decided to rename their next development platform from WinFX to the .NET Framework 3.0. While it won’t affect the average user, it has created quite a discussion for developers:

The .NET Framework has always been at the core of WinFX, but the WinFX brand didn’t convey this. The brand also created an unnatural discontinuity between previous versions of our framework and the current version.

With this in mind we have decided to rename WinFX to the .NET Framework 3.0. .NET Framework 3.0 aptly identifies the technology for exactly what it is – the next version of our developer framework.

We are confident that this change will go a long way towards reducing confusion people may have about our developer platform and the technologies in which they should invest.

.NET Framework 3.0 will include the existing .NET 2.0 components, WPF, WCF, WF, and WCS. Most people seem to think this is a bad idea (judging by the comments on these posts), and here’s why:

  1. The runtime is still at version 2.0, even in .NET 3.0 – sounds more confusing than helpful!
  2. Everything will be put into the %windir%Microsoft.NETFrameworkV3.0 directory. Again, confusing!
  3. As the release is built on .NET 2.0, it will include C# 2.0, and not C# 3.0, creating more confusion for down the road.
  4. The new stuff (W**) was never intended to be backported to Windows 2000, only Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 but .NET 2.0 fully supports all three. Presumably, this means support for Windows 2000 has been dropped.

Initially I agreed that the decision wasn’t a good one, but after thinking about it more, I think it was actually a good call on Microsoft’s part. This is about the development platform. When developing for WinFX, it’s better to think of it as a new platform, not just a superset of the old platform. Despite .NET 2.0 being at it’s core, developers are indeed using .NET 2.0 plus a bunch of other stuff when developing for WinFX. Naming the platform .NET 3.0 conveys this much more clearly.

Some of this is still confusing (such as, will .NET 2.0 be installed into both a V2 and a V3 directory, or just one of the two?) but I think in the long run this is good. It’s also the first time a lot of people will think of the .NET Framework as a product in and of itself, and when you do that, you realize it doesn’t matter what version the innards have. The other nice thing is that we’ll get a single installer now, instead of three or four.

I guess my main concern is that the size of the framework is going to start to balloon. Well, that and we have no idea what version of the framework the next release of Visual Studio, codenamed “Orcas”, will ship with. Presumably the change doesn’t affect the release date for Vista.

Who is Google's worst enemy?

Post ImageIf you said Microsoft or Yahoo, you’d be wrong. I think the real enemy for Google is itself, which is kind of like Microsoft, but for different reasons. Microsoft’s worst enemy is itself because it has to find ways to get people to upgrade from the existing versions of Microsoft software they already use. Or to move their users to a subscription model. Google’s worst enemy is itself because they have done an amazingly good job of accomplishing nothing.

“But they have so many products!” you exclaim. Exactly. They have got a ton of products, including some like the recently released Google Spreadsheets that seem to target Microsoft applications (though Microsoft’s Don Dodge makes a good case that they target open source software instead), yet none of them make money. Honestly, Google must have the largest number of non-revenue earning products of any company in history. I say they have accomplished nothing because their core product (AdSense, not search) really hasn’t changed all that much since it was launched. Instead of improving it, and finding ways to deal with click fraud and the other problems, Google has blinded itself with these side projects that seem bent on competing with Microsoft. And don’t be fooled by their ad company purchases – none of them have come to bear any fruit yet.

When I first learned about it, I thought that Google’s policy of encouraging employees to spend 10-20% of their time working on non-core projects was a good one, but now I am not so sure. It has resulted in lots of interesting technology to be sure, but not much else. I really don’t see how Google would get any ROI out of something like Google Spreadsheets. I have no idea what Google’s revenue breakdown is, but I highly doubt there’s a gem, other than AdSense of course, to be found.

That’s why I think Google’s worst enemy is itself. They have grown so big, so fast, that they forgot to take care of the goose that laid the golden egg. They haven’t cut it open yet, but if they continue to focus on these other mostly unimportant side projects, they might as well have.