ZDNet (David Coursey) has an article with suggestions for Microsoft and its USD 49 billion cash hoard – start over, and create a new OS from scratch. The ideas mentioned are something the Linux community would do well to listen do and implement.
We need a new Microsoft OS that’s actually easy to use, runs easy-to-use applications, and adapts itself to each user’s specific digital environment–the other computers, phones, music devices, video gear, still cameras, etc., with which most of us surround our PCs.
WE NEED an operating system that’s smarter and presents a less bewildering array of options and choices than today’s Windows. We need more of the OS–especially network setup and access controls–hidden under the hood, where users never have to see them.
We need an operating system optimized for home and small business users and another with enhanced functionality for large businesses, or maybe just one OS that self-configures itself based on what it sees on the network.
At the same time Microsoft is creating a new user interface, perhaps it could also do something about Windows’s tendency to have problems that defy description, thus making it impossible to query the support database for a fix. Most of these seem to involve the system registry somehow, but RegEdit is not for the weak-hearted. It would be nice if Windows didn’t periodically get so messed up that a reinstall of the entire OS becomes necessary.
I have a little different viewpoint on the OS front: what we need is an all-in-one server OS for the developing countries of the world – all the applications that a small business needs, running off the server, so SMEs can have an affordable computing solution.
