Microsoft continues to shoot themselves in the foot with Windows

For a company that holds a monopoly over its industry, Microsoft has shown a remarkable lack of focus in regard to its plans for future versions of Windows. Today, with the press murmuring about a possible interim release of Windows XP, Microsoft seems to have fired a few more rounds into the ground, straight through the wide-open hole that already exists in its foot.

A quick review of the history of Windows: Windows 3.0, the first version of Windows to begin to attract a substantial user-base, ws released in 1990. The Windows snowball begins to roll here. Two years later, Microsoft released Windows 3.1, a significant upgrade that added numerous features, simplified the interface, and brought with it further usability that allowed the Windows snowball to continue to roll downhill and gain momentum. In 1995, Microsoft released Windows 95, a massive step forward for Windows and the tipping point that pulled the majority of PC users over to Windows from DOS. With Windows 95, "Windows" as we know it- and "Windows" as it dominates the industry- was born. Three years later came Windows 98, an update that smoothed out most of Windows 95's rough edges and added support for technology that had come to life since Windows 95 (noteably the Internet). A year later, in 1999, Microsoft released Windows 98 Second Edition, a modest tweak that brought further refinements and polish. And finally, in 2000, Microsoft released Windows Millennium Edition, yet another tweak to Windows 98. So, the pattern with Windows through the year 2000 was that Microsoft released a product, refined it, and then released it again.

2000 also saw the release of another version of Windows- Windows 2000- which was a business-oriented operating system upgrade to Microsoft's hard-core Windows NT 4.0 system. Windows 2000 was to have been named Windows NT 5.0, and should have been, since the name Windows 2000 mislead many people to think that it was a sequel to Windows 98, which it was not. (Rather, it was a sequel to Windows NT 4.0.) Windows NT 5.0 was a project of vast scope and immense ambition on Microsoft's behalf. Its goal was to take the Windows NT core operating system, which Microsoft had been developing since the early 1990's, and add a ton of features to it to turn it into a super-premium, ultimate OS that would serve as the basis for all versions on Windows to follow.

Windows 2000 (nee NT 5.0) took quite a while to develop. Several of the features planned for it had been in development since early 1995, and as the years wore on, the release date continued to be pushed back further and further. When Microsoft finally shipped Windows 2000, everyone in the world felt the relief pour out of Redmond. Several recently freed political prisoners in Iraq, no less, have mentioned how- despite being shackled to walls in dungeons and completely deprived of all sensory input for several years- they felt a noticeable easing of tension and whispered to themselves, "Thank God, Microsoft," the day Windows 2000 was completed.

With Windows 2000 out the door, it was time for Microsoft to do a little self-evaluation. And it didn't take long for them to come to the conclusion that with Windows 2000 (nee NT 5.0), they'd set their sights too high and had, as a result, created a perpetual-motion machine of release delays as they struggled to ship a product that continued to grow in complexity and scope. The future of Windows, they concluded, could not consist of massive upgrades spaced apart by 5 years, but should rather mirror the release pattern of the consumer versions of Windows, which came out every few years and introduced incremental changes.

In 2001, Microsoft released Windows XP, which was a refinement both to Windows 2000 and Windows Millennium Edition. With XP, Microsoft was able to consolidate their business-oriented NT-based operating system and their consumer-focused Windows 9x series into a single product. In other words, Windows XP represented the future of Windows for everyone who used Windows, both at home and at work. With XP out the door, Microsoft announced that it had plans for two future upgrades to the Windows product line: a product code-named Longhorn, which would be released a few years down the line as an upgrade to XP, and a product code-named Blackcomb, which was a more ambitious effort that would take more time to develop and would come out a few years after Longhorn. At the time, it seemed as if Microsoft had learned from its self-evaluation, and was essentially saying, "We'll release a Windows XP + 2 or 3, which will be a nice upgrade for people using XP, and then we'll release Windows XP + 2 or 3 + 2 or 3, which is a more ambitious project that, at the moment, is pretty far out there but will fall into place nicely a few years after the next Windows release."

Makes sense.

Didn't happen.

Rather than follow through with the Longhorn/Blackcomb one-two punch, Microsoft switched gears late in 2002 and decided that Longhorn, the follow-up to Windows XP, was actually going to be a massive release that would take years and years to develop. They were saying that they decided to backtrack on the lessons supposedly learned with Windows 2000 and indeed focus their resources on developing another massive, feature-rich upgrade to Windows. While this might sound noble in spirit, the reality is that this meant that Windows XP was going to have to stick around for quite some time before an upgrade.

Wait a minute, you might ask. What about releasing a modest update to Windows XP in the interim- an interim release between XP and Longhorn- that would bring XP up to date while the masses waited for Longhorn?

Makes sense.

Microsoft said it wouldn't happen.

At various times throughout 2002 and 2003, Microsoft plainly stated that, even though Longhorn was going to take a while to develop, there would be no interim release of Windows before Longhorn. In May of 2003, a Microsoft Senior VP actually said, in regard to Windows XP, "Don't expect an interim release."

So here we are. It's 2004 and Windows XP will turn three this year. And mind you, in the operating system world, all years are not equal. One year now is worth more than 2 mid-nineties years, given the accelerated pace of hardware and software development. The technological gap between 1991 and 1993 wasn't nearly as big as the gap between 2004 and 2006 will be. In other words, waiting five years for an operating system release these days is a really, really bad thing.

But this is about Microsoft shooting itself in the foot, and now that I've wrapped up my brief history of Windows, I'm better able to explain what I mean by that. Microsoft is shooting itself in the foot because they are counting on their operating system monopoly to keep users stuck on Windows XP while they toil away on a massive, multi-year project that is not very well defined and just as dubious a proposition as Windows NT 5.0 was back when it was a twinkle in its developers' eyes.

There is a lot of Longhorn "wait 'till you see this" coming from Microsoft these days. There's a lot of propaganda floating around- there are even Microsoft employees who have company-sanctioned blogs devoted to Longhorn. To make matters worse, Microsoft is deflecting criticism of its current versions of Windows by claiming that Longhorn will solve everything. Look at all of the viruses and worms that have been pounding Windows recently. Don't worry, Microsoft says- just wait until Longhorn, which will make it all better. Microsoft is trying to get people excited about concepts that will probably not become reality until 2007, at the earliest.

So, as I stated at the top of this article, today comes news that Microsoft is considering an official interim release to Windows XP. What does this mean? Clearly, this means that Longhorn is even FURTHER out than expected. The feature-creep and gosh-we-set-our-sights-too-high fever of Windows 2000 (nee NT 5.0) is back again, with a vengeance. And why is this an issue? Because the vast majority of PC users are trapped using Windows, and will be robbed of operating system innovation for quite some time. An interim release of Windows XP may help gloss things over a bit, but it will be a band-aid to address the larger problem, which is that Microsoft now takes its monopolized installed base of users for granted, and no longer needs to innovate to hold onto its users.

Between now and Longhorn, Linux and Macintosh users will doubtlessly see several updates to their operating systems that bring them new technologies and features. With any luck, the competition these platforms present to Microsoft will either cause users and businesses to emigrate from Windows lock-in and/or force Microsoft to deliver upgrades in a more competitive manner.

As smoke slowly curls up from the smoldering edges of the large hole in Microsoft's foot, one can only hope that things will improve for everyone. And given Microsoft's ignorance and arrogance, I hope and suspect that people find such improvements in worlds not tied to Windows.

"The Passion of the Christ"

So I saw the movie last night, a 10:30 PM show on opening day. The theater was surprisingly crowded- at least 75% full. Many in attendance had ash crosses on their foreheads, as this was Ash Wednesday. There was definitely a heavy weight to the atmosphere- heavy expectations and curiosity. I was nervous and a bit uncomfortable, because I knew I was about to join a crowd of strangers in watching the mutilation of a religious figure. I felt uncertain adding my ticket to the opening day tally of a film that has attracted so much criticism from so many Jewish figures.

And then we all watched the movie.

"The Passion of the Christ" is, much like "The Blair Witch Project", a film that owes its power first and foremost to the hype that surrounds it. Had this movie not been directed by Mel Gibson, had it not received the year-long (plus) barrage of positive and negative media attention, had it not ingrained itself into the nation's news cycle so solidly before opening, it would certainly not have attracted this furor on its own merits.

It's not a great film, nor is it a terrible one. It's an over-the-top, heavy-handed, gory experience that drives home a single point: Jesus Christ really, really suffered for the sins of humanity, and there was some pretty depraved humanity surrounding his demise.

From all of the hype, I was expecting a film that would get a bit deeper under my skin than "The Passion" was able to. Mel Gibson's reliance on a small bag of moviemaking tricks- extreme slow motion, dramatic music, and explicit depictions of savagery- had the effect of turning the crucifixion of Jesus Christ into an event that comes across like a lower budget version of "Gladiator". And as for the charges that the film is anti-Semitic... I can only say that I was surprised at how black and white the differences between the Jewish high priests and Pontius Pilate have been drawn. As Jesus is being whipped and beaten, the priests squint with evil satisfaction in their eyes as Satan slowly moves among them. Literally! Pontius Pilate calmly questions Jesus, finds no fault, sends him away, the Jews eventually bring him back, demanding his crucifixion... Yadda yadda, there's a lot of back and forth, but this film makes it very clear that Pilate was a decent, Caesar-fearing man in search of the truth- and the truth tells him not to crucify Jesus- but in the end, crowds of hysterical, crucifixion-demanding, Satan-mingling Jews forced his hand.

I am not as familiar with the New Testament, biblical history, or Vatican II as I'd like to be, but it doesn't take a scholar of religion or film to determine that "The Passion of the Christ" makes no effort to dispel the notion that bloodthirsty Jews brought Jesus down to the dismay of Pontius Pilate, regardless of what the accepted historical record or politically correct view of the event would be.

Of course, this is all subjective. Any movie review is subjective, and I think this film will elicit reviews that are even more personal than usual. Different people will have dramatically different reasons to love, hate, and revere this film, and after seeing it, I expect I will be able to understand and respect all of their points.

In the end, this is a film that savages a holy man and showcases humanity at its most rank in an attempt to express an elicit belief. I'm certain it works for many. I would bet, however, that if the film's goal had been instead to clearly and explicitly depict Jesus's message of love, hope, and brotherhood- a more challenging proposition- the public response to the film would be one more in line with Jesus's prayers for humanity than what Mel Gibson has achieved with "The Passion of the Christ".

The guy who decided where the Mars rovers were going to land...

...used a Mac to do it. According to him, 90% of the folks at JPL (NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory- the certifiable rocket scientists) use Macs.

"Bruce Almighty"

Watched "Bruce Almighty" the other night. Very blah- not terrible, not particularly worth watching.