Mr. Ballmer recently said and announced: "We need a new operating system for the cloud .. and for now we will call it Windows Cloud".
Technically speaking: What is an operating system for the cloud? Who need such?
Horizontal architecture scaling technique, along with various techniques to achieve reliability and scalability and interconnectivity has been around on the web for years. All these can be built with "existing OSes".
Technically speaking, the web doesn't seem to need a new operating system for it to expand nor operate. HTML/DHTML as a base, popular programming language/script for the web, web API and cloud infrastructure services that the web developer need to do magical stuff on the web is already exist, and widely available.
We now can do cloud computing on Amazon EC2. We can do scripting for the web using many tools and language. We can implement messaging and horizontal architecture to enable scalability.
In the future we might have OpenID for identity, we have facebook API, Google API, and many more things coming in the picture. Combined together, these are "cloud computing infrastructure", that we all already have access to.
While room for improvement for the "next web" is many, there doesn't seem to be a need (nor urgent need) for a "new OS" that is specifically designed for the web itself.
So:
What does Mr. Ballmer really mean by "new operating system for the cloud"? A bunch of new Windows API exposed on the internet? A couple of Silverlight "front-end" components embeddable/mashable on Desktop or HTML pages?
While such might be "cute", .. all these are not technically constitute an "OS" ... These are just would be APIs, or "service in the cloud" -- as may other APIs and embeddable/mashable object available on the web today. Should we call these the "new OS" after all??
So 3 questions remain:
- What is a new "OS" for the web mean anyway?
- Who need such new "OS" for the web anyway?
- Is it a real technical "thing"?, or is it really is -- actually -- just a "marketing jargon" used to differentiate Windows OS "traditional licensing policy" from the "massive web licensing" scheme?
Being "totally confused" by all these, I come to this "assumption": probably this is just a "marketing jargon". Understanding its potential technical irrelevance, "such new gimmick" perhaps need to be created by Microsoft to allow room for Microsoft to define a new "licensing model" for "the web".
That means: the new "OS" probably will come up with a new licensing scheme that would allow hundreds of thousands of Windows to be deployed for massive web infrastructure, with reasonable licensing fee, instead of being bloated by its current traditional licensing structure.
When the market can start to perceive this "new windows" as "Windows cloud", then the pricing & licensing model for that "Windows Cloud" could be made totally "new" , and it won't affect the pricing & licensing structure that "traditional" Windows provide.
At the core of it, although it might have been declared as a "new OS", speculative assumption on the real meaning of this probably is this: This might be just the "same" OS with a couple of Windows API exposed for the internet, and a TOTALLY NEW PRICING SCHEME MODEL attached to it.
Could this be the case?
We will see and understand what this really mean, and what this really is, as the "real" thing being announced by Microsoft shortly -- around the end of this month.
I think Microsoft at last realize that cloud computing need a, brand new, GUI-less OS. No more BSoD humiliation!
Posted by: andika | October 05, 2008 at 04:52 PM
Andika,
I think I got your point. :-)
Everything moves to the web. Browser (and/or technologies such as Adobe Air) eventually becomes the "user interaction front-end" of the future.
As for Windows GUI, it might still be useful (in some cases), but increasingly -- just like DOS -- it becomes "less and less important" as we (and our applications) moves into the web, in the near and upcoming future.
We'll see how this "cloud" thing goes. :-)
Cheers,
-arv
Posted by: Arvino | October 06, 2008 at 12:55 AM