A Universal OS and new RAD Web Tool

Well, it looks like the operating system wars are coming to an end. Metaphorically speaking, this is the equivalent of the destruction of the Berlin Wall. It looks like due to the overwhelming economics of fighting open source Linux, Microsoft has decided to embrace the open source model, restructure, and support Linux with all its energy. You could see this coming with the recent reorganization announcements within Microsoft's management ranks. Recall that this type of a adaptation worked for Apple when it made a similar decision in the late 1990s for its Mac OS X project.

Economically, sustaining the battle against the open source movement was a draining the corporate giant. With the EU on the verge of fining Microsoft $2.4 million a day for violation of EU antitrust rulings, this has proven to be too much business risk to Microsoft's bottom line. Microsoft did not have any intention of complying with any of the EU's rulings which is exactly what they have done in the US in the past 10-years. Lobbying the EU just does not appear to be working as it has in the US.

In addition to the Singularity project that Microsoft R&D is working on, they have decided to join the Eclipse foundation, support the Novell Mono project, and have announced that internally they have been working on a Mac OS X like project where the Windows kernel will now be based on the Linux 2.6 kernel. The operating systems engineering group has been working on this for the past 3 years and they are nearing a point where they can unveil their progress to date to the world in true Microsoft marketing style, PowerPoint presentations. We will start getting the marketing briefings shortly as Microsoft prepares to adapt. There is a rumor that this project was initiated to counter the growing competition between Microsoft and Sony.

Sony has been collaborating with Apple, IBM, and Toshiba engineering a Linux based operating system that makes heavy use of virtualization and can seamlessly run Linux, Mac, Windows applications with ease. It is designed for the Cell chip and we should be seeing alpha versions of this new yet to be named OS in early 2007. I even saw that it will run on the Playstation 3 which makes a lot of sense.

Now you can see why a 'Universal OS' is on the horizon or at least there is OS convergence happening on all fronts. All the major players are working on some form of Linux kernel based operating system for the future.

On the software development front, the Eclipse foundation and Mono have announced a secret project that will permit developers to build Java, .NET, php, Ruby web applications using a universal web GUI/AJAX RAD plugin. Based on rumored information about early alpha versions, it's capabilities can be summed up to be equivalent of what the initial Borland Delphi 1.0 did for GUI client/server development in 1995. It changed everything as far as RAD client/server development is concerned. As a matter of fact, I saw some early hints that the IBM was purchasing Borland's IDE tools (Delphi, JBuilder) which are now on the market primarily to keep the talented Borland software engineers employed within the Eclipse Foundation. Things that make you go hmmm.

I have been waiting for a 'RAD for the web' type of tool that will give developers back the productivity levels that were attained with Delphi/Visual Basic in the 1990s. In the past few years, open source tools have come to dominate the web development space outside of .NET. With the infancy of Web 2.0, it looks like tools consolidation and a new dynamics have the prevailing winds blowing in the direction of the open source model. I personally have seen many decisions made for this movement allowing organizations to adopt open source technology where Microsoft once ruled. Look at what open source technology adoption has done for the emerging commercial space industry, "The Software of Space Exploration".

2006 is shaping itself to be a year of innovation, excitment, and surprises just as I anticipated. It is only the first of April and yet so much change is happening! I anticipate the next 9-months of this year being just as exciting.