Today's blog post comes from the Kung Fu Drafter. You can find more of his blog posts at: http://www.kungfudrafter.com/
Doesn’t it seem odd when one stops to consider how dramatically different even today’s bargain basement laptop is compared to the models from the early 1990’s? From processors to displays to the fact that you can’t find a 3.5” disk drive if your life depended on it. Still we are bound to the concept of operating systems based on computer format. Even though these “modern” operating systems are different and vastly expanded versions, at heart they are simply prettier versions of the same old Windows or Mac operating systems. Even the CPU’s of these computer formats, the most fundamental difference between Windows and Mac machines, has changed over the years! And yet the same operating systems remain.
We are at a point in technology where we have super fast; super affordable computers designed for ever level of user imaginable. We have seemingly limitless hard drive space and video processing power in homes to rival Hollywood studios. Even the internet has evolved to become an interactive platform that is gaining in power and capability every day. Yet we still have the Windows and Mac operating systems.
We’ve come so far down the trail of computer technology that now we can even immolate one operating system within another. No longer are we limited in the choice of applications available to us. Gone are the days when an Apple computer user could only purchase “Mac software”. Now a Mac user has the entire Windows software world open to them through the use of virtualization software such as Parallels. So that brings us to a point where we have to ask the question, “How important is the operating system?”
If we can purchase a Mac and whatever the operating system update de jour is, but run any operating system we choose, how important is that operating system? If we choose a piece of virtualization software and install a second operating system within the first does that not negate the importance of a system operating system?
The real question at the time of purchase changes from “Which computer has the operating system with the most applications?” to “Which virtualization application is the best for loading the operating system that runs that application I want?” In that case we have mitigated the choice of computer operating systems to a non-issue. What is important is the virtualization application, the middleware. So I’ve come to the conclusion that the middleware, whether it is a browser for Web 2.0 applications,or virtualization software, is the new operating system.
In the future, Slush Kitten or Windows IIXX or whatever the developers call the newest computer operating systems will not be the deciding factor in computer purchase and use. That definitive question will become “Is Parallels available on that format? Because I know that lets me run Windows, and Linux, and Chrome and X and Y”. The operating system, for all its cost of development and long history of service, may have finally fallen by the wayside. This opinion hold especially true in the belief that many people share in which large scale operating system releases are a thing of the past.
As the role and emphasis of the computer operating system subsides, the rise of the middleware will be exponential. Applications, such as browsers and virtualization software that offer cross platform utilization will form the computing world of the future. It will be a future where the chauffer is more important than the car that takes you somewhere. It will be an exciting future. One so vastly different than where we started that our past selves could only have imagined it in a parallel universe …
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