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CowboyTeal writes:
"Windows 8 is still being disputed as either the product of a genius or a nerdy sadist but that doesn't mean Windows 9 isn't in the works. That said, how would you guys improve Windows if you could change anything about it? Has windows 8 improved or degraded your overall experience of the Windows platform? If you're not a Windows user, what features would you like to see in Windows for possible assimilation?"
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If the thunder don't get you, then the lightning will.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 02 2014, @11:37AM
You claim that Microsoft is not innovative and yet Windows is the only commonly used operating system that is not a blatant Unix clone. Android, Linux, OSX, QNX, all Unix clones. Windows is suffciently non-Unix-like that it requires a compatibility layer like Cygwin just to compile Unix software. The fact is that everybody else is copying Unix while Microsoft is doing something different.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by gishzida on Sunday March 02 2014, @12:19PM
Ask yourself honestly: Was Aero innovative? It's MS-OSX. Was Metro innovative? What is innovative about pissing off all of your desktop users? Was the fact that the original Windows IP stack was from BSD innovative? Was MS innovative that copied as much as they could from BSD to get Posix compliance? Was MS innovative when they fumbled on LAN networking and Novell got there first-- It took MS 20 years to kill Novell in the market place and Novell had the still had the better Server product. Was MS innovative that that Novell could get rated as a secure OS by the US Government because of superior directory services and file permissions [even better than *nix] and MS could only get NT certified if it was not plugged in to the network???
I've used MS OSes and apps for over 30 years and what MS has been most successful [innovative?] at was FUD and their ever favorite "Adopt, Extend, and Exterminate" method of innovation. MS has had the money to undercut or mislead.
The things MS has done does not "justify" be called innovative. They did not see the need for more than 640K of memory. The did not see what a innovative company could do in the compiler / utility / application space until Borland started kicking them around. Once they applied money and pressure to the market place Borland lost out.
From that point until the beginning of "the endless Internet summer" MS made sure no one got in their market space.
For example -- Once upon a time there was a Windows Basic Compiler who's first two versions were impressive enough to draw attention of Computer Associates. CA bought it but when MS realized the threat suddenly CA and MS signed an agreement to allow CA to be come a "solutions partner" and CA quietly killed CA-Realizer which was a better product [I used both Realizer and Visual Basic -- Realizer was a better RAD tool that VB].
The kind of "burn your bridges innovation" MS used isn't really innovation. Now nearly 20 years into the "public" Internet Era and MS is struggling because they did not innovate. The point is they could have killed all of their current competitors but they did not innovate their way out of their predicament... they thought that their 1-2 punch of OS and Apps was invincible... Until Google and Apple showed them different. So yes MS needs to put on its thinking cap and innovate... or they are history.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 02 2014, @04:43PM
Isn't it sad that the original mission of the FSF was the grand and glorious vision of producing a Unix clone? And they didn't even completely succeed at that - a college kid from Finland had to do the hardest part for them.