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| How long can the dog and pony show
known as Microsoft run? It is such a farce. Every article about
some great software company's latest project has a blurb mentioning the
competing Microsoft product. For every great product put out by every
company, there is a Microsoft song and dance thrown together, boxed and
shipped off. Apple's Quicktime and Real's Realplayer have Windows
Media Player, Web server's from IBM, Netscape, and Open Source Apache have
MS Back Office, Sun Microsystems's Java Enterprise Edition which is a high
end internet programming language Windows Distributed Internet Applications,
Netscape's Navigator and Communicator have the headache of Internet Explorer.
These products are third-rate pieces of crap with the Microsoft name and
the Windows monopoly behind them, so they sell well but perform horribly.
People love to say that Microsoft products work so much better than other
products. That is because they are fine tuned to run on Windows with
information that isn't released to other developers but Windows is yet
another third-rate product, it's bloated and uses stale technology.
Windows is the Ricky Martin of operating systems, resulting from over exposure
and satanic marketing methods. But not only do people listen to the
crap, they buy albums which will encourage him to do movies, TV, and a
book. Those are the equivalent of Internet Explorer and Windows Media
Player.
The problem here is that Microsoft
is stifling innovation. They take billions of consumer's dollars
for their Windows operating system when the truth is, consumers don't need
an operating system. Computers have found their niche as making us
productive and connected. This is done by applications which could
easily be run off a network server using an interpreted language like Java,
or Postscript. Postscript is the language invented by Adobe to make
printers work. A printer is basically a computer, it has a CPU and
memory but does it use an operating system? No, it gets instructions
from another computer and makes beautiful output without the headaches
of Windows. The computer does need system software to run the hardware,
but not to drown it. Java is a programming language developed by
Sun. It is a meld of LISP and C++ and is suited to the internet because
it runs on al platforms, is light on the system, and can be run off the
internet.
What consumers need is an internet
appliance. Something that acts as a faucet for information.
People rushed out to buy Windows 95 but what was it? It is a cardboard
box with a piece of plastic that had simply information on it. Information
is what the net is for. One revolution came about when Apple sold
the Apple ][, a personal computer, the computer world went from mainframes
to the desktop, now it has to go from the desktop to the network. Some
companies are starting to shift the focus to the network. Microworkz.com
has a hot idea out. It's a simple appliance/computer they call the
iToaster, it has a fax modem, keyboard, mouse, hooks to a printer and your
TV or a monitor. Its name represents its appliance-like attitude.
The best part is it doesn't use Windows, they made their own light and
simple OS based on the Unix-like OS, Linux that runs applications that
are compatible with most file types and it's $300! Apple started
the shift to the network with the iMac , the no-nonsense (i)nternet (Mac)intosh,
equipped with a network adapter, fax modem, keyboard, mouse, monitor, and
software, all you need to be connected and productive. Its low price($1199),
ease of use and sexy curves make it suited to the consumer.
The icing
on the cake was generously spread when Apple released Mac OS X Server.
Sophisticated operating systems are fine and dandy, but for the large computers
powering the internet, those computers use Unix or Unix-like open source
operating systems. Mac OS X Server is a powerful server operating
system based on the Unix-like OS, Mach. It has a revolutionary feature
called Netboot which allows client machines (ie. iMacs) to boot off the
hard drive of the server machine over a network (ie. a school/office network
or even the internet). The client machine doesn't even need a hard
drive of its own. System software and applications need to be maintained
in one place, the big(server) machine, which allows users of the small(client)
machines to be simply connected and productive.
The internet appliance theory is
a general mantra of Larry Ellison, founder and CEO of high end software
company Oracle and good friend and advisor to Steve Jobs, the iCEO of our
favorite fruit company, Apple.
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