Old Operating Systems Don’t Die…

found an interesting article about old operating systems


Now this is good tech news in its purest form: After eight years of development, a new operating system called Haiku has been released in alpha form. It’s an open-source reconstruction of BeOS, the mean, lean, multimedia-savvy OS which I really liked when I reviewed it for PC World, um, eleven years ago. (If I recall correctly, I compared it with Windows 98 and an early version of Red Hat Linux.) It’s certainly a happier development than we’re accustomed to hearing about BeOS, a product which failed to become the next-generation Mac OS back in the 1990s and was then sold to Palm for a measly $11 million, whereupon it pretty much vanished except for the occasional legal aftershock.
Still, for an operating system that never succeeded in the first place, BeOS has been remarkably…successful. It’s still embedded in at least one professional audio product, is the subject of multiple news sites and blogs, and boasts an impressive array of applications. It may not have changed the world, but it was both useful and loved. And even if Haiku is a quixotic project, it gives BeOS a new lease on life.
The Haiku release got me thinking about other once-signficant OSes, and what happened to them. Herewith, some quick updates on a few major ones from the 1970s and 1980s. Remarkably enough, they haven’t been done in by disinterested owners, obsolete technology, and legal wrangling–they’re all still around in one form or another, and it’s entirely possible that some of them will outlive us all.

CP/M (born 1973)
You could argue that Digital Research’s pioneering desktop OS lives on in spirit every time anyone boots up Windows: Microsoft’s operating system is the successor to MS-DOS, which started out as a hasty knockoff of CP/M. As for bona-fide DR CP/M? Well, it’s apparently still available in new/old-stock form from this company for fifteen bucks a copy, although I’m not sure if anyone runs it today for any reason other than nerdy nostalgia. But CP/M never really went away–it evolved into DOS PLUS, which then morphed into DR DOS, which one-time owner Caldera open-sourced as OpenDOS. Both DR DOS and OpenDOS are still with us.

VMS (born 1977)
I don’t think I’ve ever laid eyes on a Digital VAX minicomputer in my life, but when I was first getting into computers, they were the gold standard of industrial-strength computing, in large part due to VMS, the OS they ran. (VMS architect Dave Cutler went on to spearhead Windows NT, and is currently working on Microsoft’s Azure cloud-computing platform.) VAXes VAXen were so popular that they not only survived the end of the minicomputer era, but also the merger of Digital into Compaq and of Compaq into HP–the last ones rolled off assembly lines in this decade. After multiple migrations by VMS to new platforms, HP is still selling computers that run the OS, which is now known as OpenVMS.

MS-DOS (born 1981)
You think Microsoft is having trouble ridding itself of Windows XP? DOS, an OS that dates from early in the first Reagan administration, is still very much alive, quietly in use at businesses running an array of vertical and embedded applications. Microsoft supposedly killed it in 2001, but if you subscribe to its TechNet service for IT types, you can download DOS 6.0 and 6.22 to this day. (The company surely wouldn’t offer it unless there were folks out there who still needed it.) Then there’s FreeDOS, the DOS-compatible open-source OS that you can even get preinstalled on certain HP systems. Prediction: Long after there’s not a single soul left running Windows 7, there will be someone, somewhere happily using DOS.
Commodore KERNAL/BASIC 2.0 (born 1982)
Like many early home computers–including my beloved TRS-80–the legendary Commodore 64 was so architecturally rudimentary that its BASIC programming language more or less doubled as its operating system, sitting on top of some low-level software called KERNAL. Until recently, I would have declared KERNAL and BASIC to be officially defunct. But they’re not only still around, but causing controversy! Developer Manomio created a properly licensed C64 emulator for the iPhone, letting you put Commodore’s 27-year-old OS in your pocket. But Apple told it that having Commodore BASIC on the iPhone was too dangerous, which led Manomio to submit a version with BASIC disabled–except you could turn it on again if you knew how. That led Apple to yank the app, which remains unavailable as I write this. Commodore founder Jack Tramiel liked to compare his competition with Apple and other companies to war; I hope he’s watching this somewhere and deriving pleasure from the dust-up.

AmigaOS (born 1985)
Ever have one of those dreams in which you discover that a long-deceased relative is alive and well, and you’re simultaneously happy and creeped out? That’s sort of how I feel about the current status of the Amiga operating system, of which I was a wild-eyed disciple from late 1987 until early 1991. Commodore folded more than fifteen years ago; its various assets have kept on changing hands ever since. I don’t claim to fully understand the convoluted post-Commodore history and legal status of AmigaOS, or why people are still running it in late 2009. But Wikipedia says that AmigaOS 4.1 was released last year, and that a “quick fix” (read: service pack) came out just last June. All I know for sure is that this version won’t run on my Amiga 500…and that I’ll shed a silent tear if AmigaOS ever ceases to exist.

OS/2 (born 1987)
“They make the Amiga users look sane.” That’s how my first boss in the computer magazine business cheerfully described OS/2 aficionados, back when it had failed to become the dominant next-generation OS that everyone expected it would be. I think we’re finally at the point where there’s nobody out there stubbornly running OS/2, grumbling about Windows, and insisting that the world will eventually come to see IBM’s OS for the gem that it is. (Actually, I take that back.) But OS/2 isn’t dead–it’s apparently still kicking around in some embedded systems and supported, grudgingly and for a fee, by Big Blue. And Serenity Systems’ eComStation 2.0, an authorized OS/2 variant, is still kicking–in fact, a silver version of release 2.0 came out just a couple of weeks ago.
EPOC (born 1989)
Some of you are probably sick of hearing me wax rhapsodic over the Psion Series 5, an amazing PDA from the 1990s which would still be amazing in some respects if it were re-released today. Much of its amazingness came from EPOC, the mobile operating system which it and earlier Psions ran. For reasons I still don’t fully understand, Psion got out of the PDA business early in this century and spun off its software operations into a company called Symbian, which concentrated on OSes for cell phones. Eventually, Symbian ended up being acquired by Nokia, and its OS has gone open source and continues development. There are still glimmers of the Psion genius in Symbian-based phones such as Nokia’s N97, but overall, the OS not only failed to keep up with the times but actually lost some of the clever interface touches that made Psion’s products so wonderful. I was so emotionally attached to EPOC that it hurts to type this, but I’ve come to the conclusion that Nokia should probably put Symbian out to pasture and adopt Google Android as its primary phone OS.
I could go on–Microsoft’s MSX, which I thought never caught on in the first place, is still sort of extant–but I’ll end this here. Except to ask you this: Which other OSes of yore are worth remembering, celebrating, and maybe even using?


see more from here http://technologizer.com/2009/09/17/old-operating-systems-dont-die/

Microsoft takes more steps towards cloud-based future

an interesting article on the future of cloud base computing.  read on:

Microsoft is now helping its rivals. It has, for example, licensed connections to its Exchange mail server to mobile phone suppliers such as Palm, Nokia and Apple, so that users can pick up their corporate email. It has developed a version of Silverlight for the Mac, and encouraged the development of Moonlight, an open-source version forLinux. It has helped Mozilla make Firefox run better on Windows, and Microsoft's forthcoming web-based version of Office will work with both Firefox and Apple's Safari.

We've just seen two more examples with Microsoft's link-up with Nokia and the announcement of Outlook for the Mac version of Office.

The Nokia deal involves the development of Office Communicator Mobile and the mobile version of Office for Symbian smartphones. This should make Nokia's phones more attractive to businesses, which until now have only been able to get the same level of integration by buying Windows Mobile phones. It should help Nokia to compete with RIM and Apple, though they could also sign similar deals.

Meanwhile, Microsoft's new business version of Office for the Mac will include its Outlook email and organiser software, instead of the earlier Mac-only Entourage. It's unlikely that the Mac version will have all the same features, and it won't be able to hook into Windows in the way that Outlook hooks into Windows. Nonetheless, Outlook is key software for millions of users in large corporations, so this will make Macs more attractive to enterprise buyers. And if they buy more Macs, they are likely to buy fewer Windows machines.

Of course, Microsoft has always supported the Mac, and co-founder Bill Gates helped promote it when it was launched. This isn't altruism. Microsoft's Mac business unit in California is very profitable, because of the number of Mac users who buy Microsoft Office. Many also buy boxed copies of Windows, which Apple has made easier by providing Boot Camp software to load it.

But this time, there's a more important shift taking place. Microsoft's latest financial results show that its business division (which includes Office) is now its biggest source of revenue: $14.3bn over the past nine months. Windows Client ($11.6bn) is second, but Server & Tools ($10.6bn) is catching up.

It therefore makes financial sense for Microsoft to focus on growing its key business and server software – Office, Exchange Server, SQL Server, SharePoint and so on – rather than defending the client versions. This is particularly true for Windows Mobile, which brings in hardly any money. (Roughly 20m sales at an estimated $7-$8 is only $140m-$160m.)

The changeover will become even more striking as Microsoft cranks up the revenues from its loss-making online services division, which has brought in only $2.4bn over the past nine months.

Microsoft is investing heavily in data centres and the development ofAzure, its cloud operating system. This will run existing Microsoft Live services such as Hotmail and Messenger, and it will eventually host Exchange, Web Office and other software. All the major programs that run on or work with Windows Server will be offered in the cloud.

And to profit from the cloud, Microsoft will eventually need to work with as many client devices as possible, not just Windows PCs. It won't be competitive if it doesn't.

Cloud computing can be cheaper as companies no longer have to buy servers and run such large data centres. However, while they will spend less on staff and hardware, they may spend more on Microsoft software.

Software can be extremely cheap if you buy it once and keep using the same program for four to eight years. When you rent it by the month – which businesses do with hosted and cloud-based services – it costs almost nothing to start, but you end up paying forever.

Indeed, if a cloud service owns your business data, you won't have a choice.

see more from here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/aug/19/cloud-computing-microsoft-nokia

SQL Azure CTP Is Live

New events and developments for SQL Azure.  Read on.


Microsoft is making the first development milestone of SQL Azure available to customers. Essentially, the Redmond company announced that the first Community Technology Preview for its relational database management system (RDBMS) for the Cloud went live as of August 18th, 2009. With SQL Azure, the software giant is laboring to extend the capabilities associated with the SQL data platform into the Cloud. At the same time, Microsoft is using branding as a means to underline the intimate connection between the Windows Azure Cloud operating system and the SQL Azure Cloud RDBMS.


 “It’s a really exciting day for everyone involved in SQL Azure. [On August 18th] we’ve announced that CTP1 is available to customers. Over the next couple of weeks everyone who has already requested an Invitation Code should be receiving one in an email. If you haven’t already requested one please do so here. Once we get through the list of developers who have already requested access, new requested will be processed in a day or two,” revealed Zach Skyles Owens, Microsoft technical evangelist.

It was in the first half of July 2009 that the Redmond company announced the rebranding of the Microsoft SQL Services. Starting with the past month, the company is referring to the now former Microsoft SQL Services as SQL Azure. At the same time, the rebranding also affected the relational database service of the Microsoft SQL Services. The company transitioned the SQL Data Services under the Windows Azure umbrella and rebranded it as the Microsoft SQL Azure Database.

“We’ve delivered a bunch of new SQL Azure content in the August release of the Windows Azure Platform Training Kit including: Presentations - Introduction to SQL Azure; Building Applications using SQL Azure; Scaling Out with SQL Azure; Demos - Preparing your SQL Azure Account; Connecting to SQL Azure; Managing Logins & Security in SQL Azure; Creating Objects in SQL Azure; Migrating Database Schemas to SQL Azure; Moving Data into and out of SQL Azure using SSIS; Building a Simple SQL Azure App; Scaling Out SQL Azure with Database Sharding and Hands on Labs - Introduction to SQL Azure; Migrating Databases to SQL Azure; Building Your First SQL Azure App,” Owens added.



see more from here http://news.softpedia.com/news/SQL-Azure-CTP-Is-Live-119577.shtml

Microsoft, Google, and VMware redefine the OS

Interesting news on how Microsoft is strengthening its market through Cloud computing

While the open-source crowd gets (rightly) excited by Linux's growing market share, three companies are pulling the rug out from under the feet of traditional operating systems.
Red Hat is winning in Linux while IBM cleans up the Unix market. But those are increasingly yesterday's markets as Microsoft, Google, and VMware create different breeds of operating system, each tuned to the strength of its product portfolio.
The easiest to understand are Google and VMware. Google, with its Linux distribution Chrome OS, is placing secondary emphasis on the operating system and primary emphasis on where it takes you: the Web. Given Google's strength in cloud computing, this makes perfect sense. Google needs an operating system just long enough to move users "off" their personal computers (or mobile phones, for which Google has developed Android) and into its cloud services: Google Apps, Search, Wave, etc.
While Google won't find this strategy to be easy, it has the brand and expertise to bring "desktop" substance to cloud applications.
Similarly, VMware's vSphere attempts to untether computing from "desktops" and on-premises servers. VMware describes vSphere as:
...the industry's first cloud operating system, transforming IT infrastructures into a private cloud--a collection of internal clouds federated on-demand to external clouds--delivering IT infrastructure as a service.
VMware recently acquired open-source Java leader SpringSource to complement this strategy, giving developers an easy way to build, deploy, and manage Java-based applications for vSphere (and beyond). With Java applications already running at full steam in vSphere, this move should serve to heighten the value of vSphere.
And then there's Microsoft. The company prints billions of dollars worth of profits each quarter from its Windows franchise, yet for years it has been quietly developing its next big operating system. And no, I'm not referring to Windows 7.
With Windows under fire from VMware in virtualization (though Gartner thinks Microsoft stands to gain on VMware) and from Google in Web-based applications, Microsoft has created a bridge "between personal productivity and line-of-business applications," one that stitches together Microsoft's "desktop" dominance with its cloud ambitions.
It's called SharePoint, and with over 100 million seats and $1 billion in revenue, the odds are that your company already has it installed.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer long ago declared that "SharePoint is the definitive operating system or platform for the middle tier," and I don't think he's using the term "operating system" lightly.
Increasingly, SharePoint is the center of the Microsoft universe, at least, for enterprise computing. SharePoint serves as the hub for Microsoft's suite of operating systems, applications, and third-party software. It is a content application server, of sorts, one that provides the platform upon which so much of Microsoft's value is now being built.
I've disparaged SharePoint in the past for its tendency to lock customers into its proprietary repository. But let's be clear: a large number of companies seem perfectly happy to make that trade-off and are actively using SharePoint at the heart of their intranets, extranets, and Web sites.
Between Microsoft SharePoint, Google Chrome OS, and VMware vSphere, we're in for real innovation in what "operating system" means. While this shift will take awhile, leaving traditional vendors plenty of time to make money in traditional operating systems--hey, companies are still making money in green-screen software--the future of the operating system is almost certain to look different from vanilla Windows, Linux, or Unix.

see source here http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10315586-16.html