Dana Blankenhorn writes about how Linux and Windows are fighting it out for the world of tomorrow, and predicts a winner:
The big battle in Always-On software starts this year. It’s between two paradigms, the American paradigm of computing and the Japanese paradigm of consumer electronics.
What may be most interesting is where these two paradigms are lining-up.
The American paradigm will be centered on Windows. It now has a kernel, the company is searching out deals in the embedded systems market, and Bill Gates has been talking about “Always-On” applications like managing your home entertainment.
The Japanese paradigm is lining up behind Linux. There are several versions of embedded Linux out there. No Linux vendor has the marketing power to challenge their customer’s paradigm. And it’s slowly dawning on vendors that the simple, embedded-only operating systems like VXWorks just don’t have the scalability to handle these really complex applications.
I’m saying, here and now, that the Japanese paradigm will win-out, which leads to an interesting paradox.
You see, consumer electronics is based on simplicity. You have a lot of default settings. Each box does one thing in one way. This makes it easier to use. Yet I am saying it is this paradigm that will win in the increasingly-complex world of Always-On.
