Re: Windows is 'collapsing,' Gartner analysts warn

["Lukas Beeler" <lukas.beeler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 3:27 PM, Joe Pluta <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>  Gartner says you need application backwards compatibility, through
>  virtualization.  Hmm.  An operating system that can be extended to new
>  hardware without affecting existing codebase, and can even support older
>  architectures using virtualization.  Sounds like a page out of the IBM i
>  handbook.

Yes and no. The only OS Vendor that has made clean breaks with it's
past and used virtualization technology to stay compatible was Apple
with it's Mac OS Increments (Recently: OS 9 -> OS X, OS X (PPC) -> OS
X (x86)).

Apple is able change both the underlying hardware and the operating
system code by using virtualization technology. However, that
compatibility was not 100% - both Rosetta (the PPC Emulator) and OS
Class support had a fair share of issues in both performance and
compatibility. It had the advantage of bringing a fully current
operating system, though.

IBM i "just" virtualizes the hardware (TIMI). So far, that has
hindered IBMs to bring a full technical rehaul to the platform, like
full unicode support throughout the operating system, object names of
arbitrary length, etc. pp. Most additions to IBM i were "tacked on",
just like Microsoft did with Windows.