The end of Windows predicted by Midori

It's IT Blogwatch: in which Microsoft plans Windows' retirement. Not to mention the top five laziest inventions...

Elizabeth Montalbano thinks the unthinkable:

There likely will be a day when the Windows client OS as it has been developed for the past 20-odd years becomes obsolete ... Microsoft Corp. seems to be preparing for that day with an incubation project codenamed Midori, which seeks to create a componentized, non-Windows OS.
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Microsoft has been emphasizing its virtualization strategy, based on its new Hyper-V hypervisor. The company also is moving full steam ahead with plans to virtualize applications and the desktop operating system as well. Using virtualization in these scenarios would eliminate the problems with application compatibility that are still giving headaches to Windows Vista users. more

Jason Chen adds:

Microsoft's upcoming Windows 7 might just be the salve to soothe Windows Vista ouchies, but what Windows fans really want is something that hasn't yet been announced ... There's a project called Singularity that's designed to solve all kinds of shortcomings in current operating systems, upending the traditional way of thinking in favor of something dramatically different. And while Singularity won't be released to the public, Midori, which takes a lot of cues from it, will.
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It won't be in Windows 7, but from the sounds of it, Midori might be far enough along to make it to Windows 8. Will they still keep calling it Windows to hold onto the brand, or will they call it something different to illustrate how dramatically separate it is from what we're currently using?. more

David Worthington has the deets:

Microsoft is incubating a componentized non-Windows operating system known as Midori, which is being architected from the ground up to tackle challenges that Redmond has determined cannot be met by simply evolving its existing technology ... Midori is designed to run directly on native hardware (x86, x64 and ARM), be hosted on the Windows Hyper-V hypervisor, or even be hosted by a Windows process.
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Today, users move across multiple devices, consume and share resources remotely, and the applications that they use are a composite of local and remote components and services. To that end, Midori will focus on concurrency, both for distributed applications and local ones ... [It] will be built with an asynchronous-only architecture that is built for task concurrency and parallel use of local and distributed resources, with a distributed component-based and data-driven application model, and dynamic management of power and other resources. more

Owen Cutajar converts coffee into blog posts:

The main driver is to push .Net down the operating system stack and make it even more pervasive, a strategy which could give Microsoft a toe-hold on other operating systems. There’s a great emphasis on cloud computing, with letting .Net decide on the granularity of your processing and how much power is needed. One thing’s for sure, it’s a pretty ambitious project, and could shape the future of how computers will be used, but it’s definitely not a short-term thing, it will be many years in the making. more

But Robert Scoble sticks to the knitting:

You are an idiot if you believe Microsoft is actually going to have a completely rewritten Operating System before Bill Gates dies (which might be 20 to 40 more years). Unfortunately journalists ... love to make it seem that Microsoft is working hard on a new, completely rewritten, operating system.
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Let me assure you they are not.
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So, what is the Midori team doing? ... Here’s my theory: it’s a forcing function on the .NET team ... Gates wants to make it possible to use a LOT more .NET in operating systems. That’s really what went wrong with Longhorn, er, Vista. Gates tried to make too much of the operating system dependent on .NET and .NET just wasn’t ready for an operating-system-level deployment/use case yet. more

Reuven Cohen goes .nettier:

It seems to be closely related to another microsoft project code named Singularity ... a Microsoft Research project started in 2003 to build a highly-dependable operating system in which a microkernel, device drivers, and applications are all written in managed code.
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There is also some innovative interface advancements planned at the presentation layer, Microsoft is making a clean break from the existing Windows GUI model, where applications must update their display on one and only one thread at a time, and the associated problems that affect OS stability and make it more difficult to write multithreaded applications. (Guess they're looking at Linux.) more

And finally...

• The Top Five Laziest Inventions

Buffer overflow:

• Sumolabs: We need FriendFeed for the Enterprise
• Outside the Lines: Why BT spent $105 million on Ribbit
• Reality Check: Collaboration brings value to VAN clouds
• GigaOM: Welcome to the PS3 Data Center
• Ars Technica: MS Surface goes spherical, but probably won't go global
• FORTUNE's Apple 2.0: iPhone apps--1,001 and counting
• Windows Vista Team Blog : Windows Mojave Video Posts

Other Computerworld bloggers:

• Seth Weintraub: What about the button? Will future MacBooks have a physical mouse button?
• Preston Gralla: Indian police: Terrorist attack used U.S. citizen's WiFi
• Mike Elgan: Finally: 'direct deposit' for any check
• SJVN: KDE 4.1 still isn't for me
• Barbara Krasnoff: Hasbro finally shuts Scrabulous down
• Robert L. Mitchell: On Hating Vista
• Robert L. Mitchell: Webster's misattributed?
• Sharon Machlis: Six degrees of ... Bret Taylor?
• Mark Hall: CRM SaaS market heats up
• Shark Tank: What could be wrong with that?
• Shark Bait: Genuine manufacturer, wrong parts

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Richi Jennings is an independent analyst/adviser/consultant, specializing in blogging, email, and spam. A 21 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. You can follow him on Twitter, pretend to be Richi's friend on Facebook, or just use boring old email: blogwatch@richi.co.uk.

Previously in IT Blogwatch:

• FCC net-neutrality-wonks: traffic-shaping open-kimono, plz
• Cuil: Google competitor, or pointless startup?
• Pump'n'dump spammer's homicide'n'suicide