Folks have been discussing and trying out 3D desktops for a while, and nothing has ever stuck. BumpTop however, looks rather interesting. As Gruber notes, it’s “the coolest software to ship Windows-only in years.”
What do you think? Is this a nicely polished gimmick, or the future of computing?
Best Buy is one of those companies that loves Microsoft. So I was particularly happy when I saw this announcement come across about Best Buy Idea X:
“a website where you can share, vote for, and discuss ideas that will help make Best Buy a better company. The site is built using Ruby on Rails and runs in Amazon’s Compute Cloud.”
Maybe open source and cloud computing isn’t so bad, ‘eh? Beautiful looking site too.
Mark Nutter writes about Why Developers are Switching to Mac.
“Unfortunately, Windows doesn’t come bundled with PHP, Rails, or any other open-source web development frameworks or languages any time soon. More and more of what we do is in the cloud these days anyways and it is almost starting to feel quaint when you come across new software that runs solely as a desktop client. Microsoft has painted themselves into a corner – they rely on closed formats and standards in a world where open source software, open formats, and open standards are king.”
I have to agree. I know very few web developers that have Windows and like it. Most “Web 2.0″ developers I know already have Mac’s, or are planning to switch soon, which makes me wonder what that will happen long term … if all future software is on the web (which seems to be the case more and more each year), and all of that is developed on non-Microsoft tools, will Microsoft cease to be relevant?
I like to think I’m a smart guy and am able to handle new things, but I’m with Steven F on the Office 2010 interface:
“This is impenetrable. It’s UI salad. I realize this is not (yet) shipping software, but my god. If you sat me down in front of this, I wouldn’t have the slightest idea where to begin.”
[via Daring Fireball, via Lifehacker]
InfoWorld: If [Microsoft] Windows is a dead end, what’s next?
[Windows 7 is] essentially the same kernel and the same OS, with a couple new technologies thrown in, such as the Surface-based multitouch capabilities and the ability for developers to ribbon-bar-enable their own apps for better consistency with Microsoft’s new UI approach (one that people either seem to love or hate). “It’s not anything radical,” says Neil MacDonald, a Gartner analyst who follows Microsoft. “It’s a polished version of Vista.”
If Windows 7 is more of the same, then maybe it’s time to conclude that Windows is a technology dead end. Last spring, Gartner warned that Microsoft had to radically change Windows or watch it fade into irrelevancy. Windows 7 is not that radical change.
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