Can Microsoft lift its game with Windows Vista?
Looking at the current state of home computing - particularly that of Windows based PCs - you can't really say much has truly advanced in radical ways. Sure, computers have got faster, 3D and video graphics have improved, capacity and bandwidth has increased, but the typical home computing experience really hasn't changed much in the last 8 years...
For the sake of simplicty, we'll use the dominant OS - Microsoft Windows - as the basis of this conclusion. Remember Windows 95/98? Pretty groundbreaking for it's time, and since then we've had Windows NT technology go mainstream with the introduction of Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
That being said, a typical Windows XP experience is hardly radically different from what we had back in good old 1998. Sure, there have been a lot of hardware advancements and technologies such as the world wide web have made leaps and bounds. But for your typical everyday tasks, everything remains much the same. While in areas such as games, personal audio (think MP3 and audio) and sheer CPU grunt continue to develop, your average user is still left with the everyday same desktop experience. Perhaps this is why industry icons such as Google and Apple's iPod are stealing the spotlight at the moment: it's not just that these things are technologically advanced, it's that they are actually offering something new.
Check out Google's "Google Earth" and you can finally appreciate a new program which actually does something new, rather than continually evolving a rehashed concept. The iPod has done more to change the current music industry - and will continue to do so for some time - than any previous musically related technology. Not only has it shaken the whole concept of retail music, it has also introduced a new culture based on personal communication.
Yet where has the desktop featured recently in "what's hip"? Nowhere, to be honest. The simple reason is, it really hasn't changed. You still carry out the same tasks in the same manner, the only difference being increased performance and more advanced technological features. Now with Microsoft's new upcoming release of Windows Vista, will things really be any different? The answer remains to be seen. Let's hope Microsoft can innovate a little more with its next OS, after all, everyone deserves something which really improves on the home computing experience.
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