Midori: the new OS from Microsoft

[Mithrandir]

I came across this on the BBC website.

[Funkstar]

There was something about Midori last week on Engadget.

That BBC article is pretty good though. I like the idea behind the concept of using extensive virtualisation throughout the OS. Also, moving away from a monolithic OS can only be a good thing in the long run.

Sounds like they could have a very stable modularised OS at the end of the day.

[Jay]

It sounds a bit strange to me.

In many ways it sounds like terminal services. Will Microsoft be hosting its own OS?

[NovaSphere]

That would be odd, wonder what it would be like.

Apart from that, sorry for being off topic but I saw this when reading the article, what the hell lol?!

[peterb]

This looks like a new twist on an old theme. (From a cursory look - so I may be completely wrong...)

In the mid to late nineties much was made of the "thin client" - a machine booted off the network and downloaded its operating system and applications on demand. The machine would have nolocal storage - everything was stored on a server. It never really caught on in the corporate market, partly because of network speed, and it was a no-no over the internet. The theory was that you paid for the software on a per use basis.

With higher speed internet, this becomes a possibility again - assuming you have universal 24x7 connectivity - but it has been updated - possibly to compete with Google's web based apps.

Be interesting to see how it pands out - as yet it appears to be a research project.

[Funkstar]

In the mid to late nineties much was made of the "thin client" - a machine booted off the network and downloaded its operating system and applications on demand. The machine would have nolocal storage - everything was stored on a server. It never really caught on in the corporate market, partly because of network speed, and it was a no-no over the internet. The theory was that you paid for the software on a per use basis.

Thin clients are still pretty big actually, but they are not the answer in all situations.

I believe places like call centers use them a lot. Places where you can have hundreds of people that only need access to a standard application and effectively hot desk all the time.

Sun are still prety big in this field i believe.

[Jay]

I use thin clients for our place of work. Terminal Services have many good points but a few bad points too, one being that you need connectivity to the central network at all times.

[TheAnimus]

don't confuse micro kernels with thin clients of the 90s.

Most thin clients where identical or very similar at best.

MicroKernels are about allowing the same things to run accross many systems, a better comparision would be to Java.

Problem is you end up with a jack of all trades master of none thing. Kinda like VLC, it plays every damn codec under the sun it seams, but can't rended anything on a slower PC because it can't begin to understand the local hardware and any optomisations it can make.

[Zadock]

Midori... isn't there already a linux distro called that?

[TheAnimus]

yup a distro by the ill faited transmeta apparently...