Day three of March Break Marathon, here, we look into some of the more recent and not particularly true aspects of modern technology that are spreading on the internet.
If you havent been hiding under a rock lately and you've been on Yahoo Answers for a bit, you may have noticed a particularly interesting advertisement regarding Bill Gates and his fear of the future of Microsoft.
Bill Gates, if you don't already know who he is, is the past CEO of Microsoft, a philanthropist, an entrepreneur, as well as the second richest man in the world (according to the latest Forbes list). His work on the Windows operating system and the MS-DOS/NT kernels which sets the foundation for Windows and Microsoft as a company has been widely used ever since. His product garners 89.9% of all computer user's desktops today.
His operating system is just like any operating system you might expect. A big piece of software located on one's hard drive that runs locally in order to support the basic needs of applications built and run over it. Pretty simple and for the past 30 years, that’s how it’s been. You would download applications that would hold your work and help you accomplish your jobs. Additional hardware and software will be adapted into your computer through the operating system. All was nice and well until you met an error. Until your computer breaks, you’re a happy man, but after, you’re raging material. The primary and biggest concern/problem with operating systems (any, Mac, Linux, or Windows) is its vulnerability to damage (long term: normal build-up of cache or short term: viruses, corrupted files), or configuration (setting up software and configurations). These problems simply annoy the heck out of users. When something breaks, you need to repair it. But the problem is, not everyone is an IT expert; you cannot expect people to just know how to troubleshoot, how to fix, and methods of repair. Most people turn towards technical support, instantly creating a multi-million dollar industry- multi-million dollar loss for consumers and companies. Repair men would have a look at your computer, and stick the operating system disk and wipe out your system to its default factory state. As it turns out, 85% of all computer “problems” are resolved “fastest” through reformatting. That’s obscene and pure ridiculous. How is it “fast” to have all your data wiped out and need to re-install all the drivers and software just to resolve a single problem? There is got to be a better way; and the better way has come our way.
Introducing the Japanese style “TRON” operating system (AKA Bill Gates’ Fear), a revolutionary new way to host and maintain your operating system. Tron and many other Web based cloud operating systems have the operating systems on servers located somewhere else. These operations on these OSes are processed and data are saved on the server. All a client needs to do is to have an internet access enabled computer that would communicate to the server to get the video feed. The client computer doesn’t need to be powerful. In fact, it could even be a netbook. The servers will behave accordingly to what tasks you are doing. Maybe allocating more cores for when you are photoshop-ing and less cores when you are just browsing the web. This poses 2 main advantages over traditional operating systems such as Windows. For one, there is no need for much configuration hassle. Because a group if IT nerds are monitoring your system’s health, you don’t need to. Backups of your data and settings are automatically created from time to time and the need to do system maintenance or manual updating isn’t necessary. Think of Facebook or YouTube, they’re pretty much cloud computers that help you use their services. They never break on you, you never have to repair them, and whatever settings you make are saved and backed up. If they come out with a new version, you are first go get it. If something does go wrong, you don’t need to be bothered, their “IT Monkeys” will flatten it all out for you. And for those reasons, Bill Gates is scared. Bill Gates sees this as the next generation of computing. Having low powered clients means having smaller, more efficient, and more portable devices.
Consumers are seeing these operating systems that require little care very useful in their lives. When the consumer doesn’t require the best hardware and operating systems, these cloud based systems suits them very well. Their eased ability to be able to be deploy the exact same experience, data and configuration onto multiple computers regardless of form factor also interests people. This new type of system is catching on. This revolution and time is different from any time ever experienced before. Everyone almost has computers that work, but now they are demanding more, people are demanding computers that works for them, that doesn’t hassle them. Just like if you were to buy a toaster, you want it to make you toast, not to be repaired and maintained every other day.