Analysts: "Windows Is Collapsing"

In an address to the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Las Vegas, Gartner analysts Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald outlined the problems facing Windows as we know it and suggested steps Microsoft should take to maintain the OS's relevance."Sometime in the middle of the next decade, Windows will be playing a much less important role on the desktop," said MacDonald. The analysts pointed to a number of familiar issues that, they said, the current approach to Windows development is failing to address successfully. Among them are the familiar compatibility issues afflicting Vista, the development time between version, and the need to support vast numbers of legacy applications.

Silver and MacDonald recommended that Microsoft work on making Windows modular, enabling customers to choose the components they need for specific uses. "One size doesn't fit all," said MacDonald. He also wondered how the need for an OS--and the very concept of an OS--will change in the era of virtualized applications and "cloud computing." MacDonald suggested that the idea of a full OS in every deployment might be replaced by the hypervisor that distributes assets as needed.TGDaily, ZDNet