Its the applications dummy !!!!

From: JF Mezei (jfmezei.spamnot_at_teksavvy.com)
Date: 01/30/05

  • Next message: Anthony Borla: "Re: Comparison of operating systems on wikipedia" 
    Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 06:46:03 -0500

    I just spent 1:55 watching a REAL web event, the Macworld keynote
    address. This one worked, wasn't an infinite loop of Carly saying
    nothing and was very impressive.

    I still remember an ALL-IN-1 presentation at a DECUS event where the
    main engineer presented the new index forms that allowed one to scroll
    through list of documents or any other indexed datasets, and the
    audience went "wow this is REALLY neat". I still remember when the VMS
    new features sessions were overcrowded with people listening from the
    corridor because there was no more room inside.

    This Apple event reminded me of the good old days of VMS where there
    were really significant improvements beuing made not only to VMS, but to
    all the applications that Digital sold with VMS, so you would come out
    of a DECUS even with complete image of what computers can do for you and
    your employer.

    In this event, Steve Jobs spent about 1:20 on software/applications for
    OS-X. Very little was said about the operating system itself, except for
    the embedded search feature which cam index documents, pictures, movies
    etc. (no mention of what was done to the file system to allow this, more
    on that later)

    Apple saw application developers deserting to Windows. How did it react
    ? It decided to fight for that market with its own applications. Faced
    with same situation, Digital decided to ditch its opwn applications
    instead of strenghetening them to remain competitive.

    Apple not only produced its own image and movie editing software, but
    this is now leeding edge since Apple is the first to support the HDTV
    format for camcorders, and its software is ready to produce HDTV DVDs
    once the actual format is agreed upon. A bit like DEC being first to
    support X.400 email back when it was thought this would take off.

    The search feature in OS-X is quite interesting. It is notified when a
    new file is created, deleted or modified and can thereore re-index it
    and change any stored views. (same applies to email messages) For
    instance, if you have a search for "Soccer" stored, that stored search
    is automatically updated if a new document that deals with Soccer is
    received, so that when you pull up that window, it comes out with
    up-to-date information. So they must have added hooks into the file
    system so that the search engine is notified of any file changes. Can
    ODS-5 do that ? Oh, and the MAC has had long and strange file names
    since 1984. ODS-5 was playing a big catch up on that one.

    Now, many of the OS-X features are very impressive, but a lot of them
    are designed for home users, managing their images, home movies, music
    etc. However, when you consider that VMS had a desktop that was more
    powerful than the MACs in the late 1980s, and you compare them now, it
    makes you realise just how much VMS has NOT moved ahead since then.

    And why any improvement Guy Peleg brings to DCL are very very
    appreciated, when you look at te big picture, they are pale in
    comparison to what Apple is doing to its OS, user interface and applications.

    Apple is like DEC used to be: it makes hardrware, OS and applications.
    So when Steve Jobs makes a presentation, he is truly presenting HIS
    products. Not somebody else products.

    Carly can only really brag about the colour of the boxes its goods are
    shipped in. Intel can brag about how many transistors and clock speed
    for a chip. Microsoft brags about stuff it wants to add in the future.
    Nobody can brag about a whole solution like Apple can (and like DEC used
    to be able to do).

    When you consider the "web event" that HP made a week or two ago, it is
    really pale in comparison with what Steve Jobs did. That was the perfect
    opportunity to present leading edge clustering features Alpha VMS had
    (and which IA64 VMS would have later on), and any new featrures VMS
    would have in 8.2. carly didn't even mention VMS in her infinite loop. I
    am sick and tired of hearing attempts to justify moving VMS to IA64.
    Nobody wants IA64, but if you made VMS look healthy, people might buy it
    despite it running on IA64.

    It is VMS features that will compensate for the disadvantage VMS has
    becuase it is on IA64. That is why it is so important to work on VMS
    features and applications.

    If the platform is truly irrelevant, then they should focus on
    discussing VMS features. And for that, it means that a greater focus
    should be put on improving VMS in visible ways. (eg: Give Guy Peleg
    greater freedom to work :-)

    Why Apple is busy with automatically indexing pictures and movies, VMS
    is looking for budget to get its proprietary version of Apache the
    ability to read text files in VMS native format. I think this really
    puts VMS into perspective.

    And while one can blame the last 3.5 years of non-VMS advancements on
    the murder of Alpha and forced porting to that IA64 thing, I think that
    the slow advancement of VMS started well before that. And with IA64 set
    to fail soon and a port to yet another platform coming, what are the
    odds that VMS might still get a much needed injection of "development
    capital" that would bring truly new features and functionality to VMS ?

    It is exactly because VMS is proprietary that it does have the ability
    to take giant leaps ahead. Unix and expecially Linux can only move
    slowly due to their need to remain "unix compatible". Apple was able to
    take a HUGE leap between MacOS 9 and OS-X, and OS-9, like VMS was way
    outdated. The fact that Apple was not only able to come back, but come
    back with a vengeance and leadership features shows that it is possible
    to take an old OS and bring it back into leadership.

    Apple demonstrated many features in OS-X and its hardware which relate
    to home entertainment centre. The same features that Microsoft brags it
    wants to be able to do in the future. Apple didn't brag about "home
    entertainment centre". They just showed what you could do today with
    their products. You want to edit your movies and show them on TV ? Press
    that button.

    Because Apple has both the hardware and software, it is able to really
    coordinate efforts. Carly can only brag about the colour of her boxes.
    Intel can only brag about how many transistors and clock speed of its
    chips, and Microsoft can only talk about future concepts for Longhorn.
    Apple displays running products on stage with great charisma because it
    is THEIR CREATION from A to Z.

    What this comes down to is not about what sort of cluster interconnect
    you have, it is all about the applications that run on your platform.
    And that is where the focus for VMS shoudl be.

    Apple is succesful because it can LEAD. It can introduce support for HD
    TV years ahead of anyone else as an example.

    In fact, Apple stole an idea from ALL-IN-1. ALL-In-1 had an interrupt
    menu (F6 key) available throughout the product which brought you to a
    menu with quick access to various functions, including acalculator etc,
    and you would then quickly return to exactly what you were doing before.
    Well, Apple is introducing he dashboard a GUI equivalent to it.

    Had Digital spent the money to turn ALL-IN-1 into a X-windows
    application and integrate WPSPLUS to DECWRITE, the concepts of ALL-In-1
    would have made this into a truly world leading office product and
    Microsoft Word might have stayed in its DOS chartacter cell format
    because VMS workstatiosn would have been the rage. Remember that in
    early 1990s, Windows didn't have decent email, didn't have decent
    networking, and VMS already had clustered workstations, true
    multitasking, secure etc etc.

    While the VMS engineers have done great things like extend clustering to
    greater distances, when you really think about it, were there any
    significant improvemnts to VMS since they put CDE to Alpha ?

    ODS-5 brought to VMS what Apple had since 1984. The TCPIP stack is
    something VMS should have had done properly since the early 1990s and
    the current product still isn't up to VMS standards and still lags
    behind other stacks. So while both ODS-5 and TCPIP may have been big
    steps for VMS, they didn't put VMS in any leadership postion, it only
    attempted to catch up.

    In the end, the OS has to provide unique services that give applicatiosn
    running on that platform a unique edge that will help sell that
    platform.

    Intrusion detection is neat. The problem is that you can't do anything
    with it. One needs to have the secuirty system call one of your own
    routines whenever intrusion records are added/updated. (send message to
    beeper, institute greater logging at YCPIP level, consifgure couter to
    block that IP address due it its constant attempts etc etc).

    So it isn't enough to spend so much effort to allow greatler flexibility
    oin system configuration. You need to spend lots of money on services
    AND on applications that use such services in a way to make them stand
    out of the crows and make people go "WOW THIS IS GREAT".

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