Message-Id: <199711140821.BAA39070@dns.ccit.arizona.edu> Date: Thu, 13 Nov 1997 23:53:36 -0800 From: Steve Gilheany <mailto:SteveGilheany@WORLDNET.ATT.NET> Subject: Microsoft Evolution - the 31 Flavors of Windows To: mailto:IMAGELIB@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
Subject: Microsoft Evolution - the 31 Flavors of WindowsPlease reply off-listserv.
The following is an article that was written from the notes I use to teach a document imaging and document management course in the UCLA Extension. A description of the course is at the end of this posting.
Microsoft Evolution: The 31 Flavors of Windows
Or, How Microsoft Applications, Content, and Operating Systems are Merging into the Microsoft Environment
DOS to Windows
Many records management packages have recently made the transition from DOS to Windows. But . . . , not to Windows 95, in some cases. What is all this stuff? This article is about the relationship between DOS, Windows, Windows 95, and the other products in the Microsoft family.
DOS
DOS (Disk Operating System), as we know it, was born with the IBM PC in 1981. 'D' was for 'Disk' because the software was on disk rather than on tape or punch cards. 'O' was for 'Operating' because DOS ran the computer so that an application, such as a word processor, could run on the computer and create your documents when you typed. 'S' was for 'System'. Everything in the computer was run by DOS, and DOS ran the computer as a system.
Windows
In the mid 1980's a layer was added on top of DOS. This layer was called Windows, a GUI (Graphical User Interface). GUI's were born at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center), popularized by Apple, and made a wild commercial success by Microsoft. Windows gave DOS the point and click mouse look, but Windows did not improve the underlying DOS.
Release Numbers
New versions of DOS and Windows were released, each with a new number. An example of a release number is '3.1.1'. A change in the first new digit represents a product life altering change, essentially a new product. A change in the second digit represents a significant upgrade. A change in the third digit represents a minor change, usually a bug fix.
Microsoft is hard at work changing release number into model year numbers, where a product is 'new' each year, changes are predictable, and changes are driven and timed by marketing, not technology. 'Windows 98' is an example of a model year number, just like the model year numbers used in the automotive industry.
Windows NT
DOS needed to be removed rather than tinkered with. In 1993, Windows NT (WNT) was introduced after five years of development. Windows NT has nothing to do with DOS or Windows (or with Windows 95). However, the Windows NT GUI was made to look like Windows to make Windows NT easier to sell. Windows NT is also incompatible with just about all DOS specialized hardware and a wide variety of DOS software.
Windows NT was, and is, designed to replace Mainframes, Unix servers, and Unix workstations. Windows NT has not grown into these shoes yet, but it will someday. Windows NT is the current choice for all but the largest document management, document imaging, and records management system servers. You will see, or hear about, Windows NT servers in most of the booths in ARMA (Association of Records Managers and Administrators) and AIIM (Association of Information and Image Management) shows.
Windows 95
Windows NT was a radical departure from both DOS and Windows. Most DOS and Windows users could not easily adopt Windows NT, (alas), so a transition plan was created. The transition plan was Windows 95 (W95) followed by Windows 98 (W98). Two weeks before Windows 95 was introduced, Bill Gates said that the transition plan would last only two releases before it was replaced by Windows NT.
Windows 95 and Windows 98 remove DOS completely, but maintain compatibility with DOS hardware and software. Unfortunately, this compatibility with DOS also preserves many DOS problems and makes it impossible for W95 and W98 to support many of the very desirable features of Windows NT. This is why W95 and W98 will be replaced by WNT 6.0 in about the year 2001.
If WNT 6.0 is called Windows 01 in the year 2001, it will: (1) restart the release numbering with '1', (2) provide a clean slate for the new millenium, (3) transition WNT to annual model year changes, (4) drop the 'NT' from 'Windows NT' because there will be nothing left of 'Non-NT Windows' to distinguish 'NT' from, (5) unify the conceptual Windows product line, (6) blur the distinctions between the many completely different products that have constituted the Windows product line, and (7) erase all memories of two decades of incompatibilities. If . . .
Another reason for removing DOS completely from Windows 95 and 98 was that in 1981, at the time of the introduction of the IBM PC, IBM retained the rights to market DOS independent of Microsoft. Microsoft had also been restricted by the federal government in marketing DOS in a monopolistic manner. With the creation of W95 and W98, DOS no longer existed in the Microsoft product line, or in the part of the computer world influenced by Microsoft, which is most of it. The quarter billion dollar hoopla around the introduction of Windows 95 was not to get people to buy Windows 95, but to kill DOS. The elimination of DOS is one of Microsoft's growing list of 'victories-by-definition'.
The Three (or More) Faces of Windows NT
The workstation, small office, and enterprise versions of WNT are being defined now and will be fully differentiated by about the end of 1998 when WNT 5.0 comes out. The WNT 5.0 beta (pre-release test) is now out and the capabilities of WNT 6.0 are being publicized for release in about the year 2001. WNT on home PCs and lower-powered office PCs used by a single individual will be derived from a version of the easy-to-maintain ZAW (Zero Administration Windows) WNT workstation.
WNT workstations are networkable. A small office WNT server will be able to support a network with up to 25 workstations. A network of WNT enterprise servers is planned to be able to handle the largest networks. Standard Windows NT servers will handle configurations between these extremes. As with the segmenting of the Windows NT server product line and market, Microsoft products are increasingly being defined to match the marketplace rather than being defined by underlying technology.
Windows CE
Windows CE is an operating system for handheld devices including cell phones and palm-top computers. While the exact relationship to Windows NT has not been determined, Windows CE and Windows NT are said to be in the same family: Windows. As memory get cheaper and processors get faster, CE may grow into a full fledged version of Windows NT.
The Office Suite
Microsoft Office is the marriage of Word (word processor), Excel (spreadsheet), PowerPoint (slides), and other desktop applications, creating a suite of products. Office 97 added Outlook 97, a contact management program (enhanced telephone book). Office 98 will be out later this year and should improve many of the features and components that were new in Office 97 (supporting the axiom that everything is better in the second release). Office 98 appears to be the start a trend of annual model year changes for the Office Suite.
Back Office
Following the Office suite concept, several support programs have been combined into the Back Office suite. The flagship support program is Windows NT. Second is the SQL (Structured Query Language) Server database. The IIS (Internet Information Server) manages a Web interface and hosts an organization's Internet site. Exchange is a mail server that compliments Outlook in the Office suite. It is likely that over the next few years Exchange will expand beyond e-mail documents and take over all document management functions in enterprises, including records management.
Because Exchange is included at no additional cost in Back Office, every organization with Back Office will view document management as a free service that came along with their server. The no-additional-cost view has already been created with Windows NT networking, which is included free with Windows NT. This is currently affecting networking vendors, such as Novell, that market their products as an additional cost add-on to Windows. Not only is Microsoft networking free with Windows NT, Microsoft networking is invisible because it does not have a high profile name. It appears that Novell may have already lost the 'war-by-definition' that Netscape is just now starting to fight with the aid of the federal government.
Back Office for Small Business
The Back Office suite is being segmented for different size businesses in the same way that the Microsoft Office Suite is segmented into Works, a low cost, introductory version of the Office, Office Standard, and Office Professional. Currently available are Back Office for Small Business and the Standard Back Office. An enterprise version of Back Office will soon follow.
Sweetening the Suites, a Suite of Suites
Microsoft's great success with suites (Microsoft Office invented the suite market and then took it over.) has created suites for everything. The Microsoft Encarta Reference Suite 98, includes the unabridged Encarta 98 Encyclopedia, Encarta Virtual Globe 98, and the Bookshelf 98 CD-ROM that includes: the American Heritage Dictionary, the Microsoft Internet Directory 98, the Encarta 98 Desk World Atlas, Roget's Thesaurus, the World Almanac and Book of Facts 1997, the Encarta 98 Desk Encyclopedia, the Columbia Dictionary of Quotations, the People's Chronology, the National Five-Digit ZIP and Post Office Directory, and the Microsoft Computer and Internet Dictionary. The Microsoft Home Essentials 98 Suite contains Word 97, the Encarta 98 Encyclopedia, Money 98, Works 4.5, Greetings Workshop, the Entertainment Pack Puzzle Collection, and Microsoft Internet Explorer. The Microsoft Money Financial Suite 98 includes Money 98, access to stock brokers, and web-based financial advice.
Most people only want one or two of the products that make up a suite, so suites are priced at about the same price as two of the suite's many component products. When Microsoft customers find a need for one of the other suite components, they discover they already have the Microsoft product for that need. They also discover that they acquired the product for free, as part of the Microsoft suite. This is great marketing. It puts Microsoft first in line for each new product category as users expand their repertoire of software tools. It is also a good antitrust strategy. If the government requires Microsoft to releases each of its products separately (as the Department of Justice is trying to do by forcing Microsoft to separate Internet Explorer from Windows 98), Microsoft can then combine the separate products in Suites.
Ultimately, there can be suites of suites, providing an all-encompassing Microsoft environment, available on one DVD. A DVD looks just like a CD, but can hold over 25 times as much software. Officially DVD does not stand for Digital Video Disk, but that is what it is. And, the DVD is supported by Windows 98 and Windows NT 5.0. The DVD, Windows 98, and Windows NT 5.0 seem like technology tours de force, but they will probably be most important as very effective tools for blurring the distinction between applications and the operating system.
What's Next?
Microsoft has spent over twenty years establishing a solid, unshakable foundation in information processing. Microsoft depends on no one for its core software products. Having established ownership in the domain of information processing, Microsoft is moving to assume its newly built heritage in information content, asserting its dominion in banking and finance, the stock market, car sales, travel, telephonic and internet communications, and document management. From it's unassailable position in information processing, Microsoft can gradually increase the expression its long ago won hegemony in the world of information at the slow, decades-long, unstoppable pace it has become known for. To put these initial information content forays into perspective, information can be seen as constituting fifty to ninety percent of the world economy when analyzed from an information management point of view.
Microsoft moved beyond the content of Microsoft Bookshelf by purchasing the Bettmann Archive of photographs and starting the Corbis Archive. A few of the premier photography collections featured in the seventeen million photograph Microsoft Corbis Archive include the Bettmann Collection, the LGI Collection, the Turnley Collection, Ansel Adams, and Roger Ressmeyer. The prestigious group of museums currently working with Corbis includes the Barnes Foundation, The National Gallery in London, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The State Hermitage Museum, the Kimbell Art Museum, and the Seattle Art Museum. Over one million of the images have been digitized, making the Corbis Archive the largest digital photographic archive in the world.
For more commercial content, Microsoft now has CarPoint for car sales, the Microsoft Network to provide internet connections and web content, MSNBC to provide news content, and is doing two million dollars per week in travel sales with the Microsoft Expedia.com travel service.
Microsoft Interactive Media products include the Microsoft Network; interactive service businesses including the Expedia.com, the Mungo Park online travel magazine, CarPoint, and the Sidewalk city guides; news and commentary products including MSNBC on the Internet and the Slate interactive magazine; multimedia games such as the Internet Gaming Zone; consumer CD-ROM titles in the kids, reference, and mapping categories; and desktop finance products and services including Microsoft Investor.
Microsoft NetMeeting is a Suite of products that expands into the area of teleconferences, multipoint dataconferencing, video phones, and internet telephony for all Microsoft customers worldwide. Microsoft NetMeeting is a core component of Microsoft Internet Explorer.
These events are also preparation for the possibility that Microsoft may not be able to sell suites of its products. Third parties can be enlisted as suite creators. Infoseek has created an intelligent channel suite, on the internet, with Microsoft's web content products. Products in the Infoseek internet suite include: Microsoft Investor, tools and content from the Microsoft Money Insider interactive financial guide; Microsoft Expedia.com, Microsoft's travel service; Microsoft CarPoint, Microsoft's online automotive sales service; and MSNBC.
Microsoft Hardware Initiatives
With the release of Microsoft's annual specification for PC hardware, PC 98, and testing by Microsoft's in-house hardware compatibility test lab, Microsoft now has more control over PC hardware than Apple has over Mac hardware, even though Microsoft makes almost no PC hardware. Microsoft achieved this by indicating that Microsoft software may not run on PC hardware that does not meet the Microsoft PC 98 hardware specification.
Microsoft's hardware compatibility test labs are busy around the clock, testing the compatibility of hardware and software. The labs maintain computer systems from more than 300 different manufacturers. For the first beta release of Windows NT 5.0, and for each NT operating system build (the process of assembling the components of an operating system) thereafter, at the rate of one build per day, the labs test more than 400 video adapters, more than 1,400 printers, more than 350 net cards, and more than 2,600 modems. Every day more devices are tested and declared Microsoft compatible and are added to the test systems. These devices can then be sold with a Microsoft compatible logo on their packaging.
The Microsoft Environment
The Microsoft environment is not just Microsoft's increasingly comprehensive product line. It is the mystique, the aura, the cachet (royal seal of quality), and the royal protection of Microsoft. Customers buy and learn Microsoft products because they know the Microsoft products will always be around, the customer's investment will never be lost. And if Microsoft drops a product, at least the Microsoft product was the least likely to disappear of all the similar products in the market place.
If a Microsoft product is not so good, at least it will have the most customers working (and paying) to make it better. If it takes a long time for a Microsoft product to get better, at least Microsoft has the most staying power to improve the product in the long run. If you are working with someone else, they are probably using the same Microsoft product you are using. If you are having problems with the Microsoft product, then your collaborator is probably having the same problems, will understand your delays, and can help.
In the old days people said that you would never loose your job if you 'bought IBM', because if IBM could not do it, no one could do it. Today Microsoft is the safe bet because if you fail with Microsoft, no one will have done better than you, because they all used (and failed with) the same Microsoft products. And, if your peers did not fail with Microsoft products, you can use your peers' solution; and Microsoft Consulting Services will help you.
Whole industries have grown up in niches created when Microsoft products do not completely fill a need. Novell and third party networking is an example. The third parties complete the Microsoft solution package, enhancing Microsoft sales and establishing a market for the new product. After the third parties grow the niche into a market large enough to justify Microsoft's interest, Microsoft enters the market niche with a Microsoft product tailored to the niche. Everyone then buys the Microsoft product and Microsoft benefits again.
Paradigm Marketing
Once customers enter the Microsoft environment, all they see are Microsoft solutions. This could be called paradigm marketing, where the customer is first sold on the idea, or paradigm, that the place to buy software is Microsoft. Then, when the customer goes to buy software, they only see Microsoft products to select from. The premiere example of paradigm marketing is the product category of operating systems. (DOS, Windows 95, and Windows NT are operating systems.) Most people have never heard of operating systems as a product category, and have not considered spending time evaluating operating systems. People only know that you buy Windows (a Microsoft product) when you buy a computer.
In the old days, when an IBM salesperson said that no solution existed, they did not see the necessity of explaining that they meant that IBM did not have a solution. If a solution was not available from IBM, then it was unavailable to the salesperson. And, therefore, it was unavailable to the customer. Similarly, the best solution available was, by definition, the best solution available from IBM. (The best solution within the IBM paradigm.)
One of the best things about being in a paradigm is that a paradigm does not need to be explained, it just is. Explanations are long and technical. No one wants to listen to, or discuss, or, heaven forbid, evaluate a long and technical explanation. People just want to do the best thing (for example, buy Windows) and get on with their jobs.
Worldwide, Universal
The Microsoft environment is international, worldwide. More than half of all Microsoft sales are outside the United States. To reduce the costs if internationalization, and to pass these benefits on to all Microsoft third party software developers and to all Microsoft end users, Microsoft is moving to a common code set for all languages.
has to be universal, all encompassing. Therefore, Windows NT supports al the languages of the world equally, including the large character set languages like Chinese. Windows NT is also timeless, in that it supports the all the ancient languages as well. To provide this universal language support, Windows NT text is based on the Unicode character set which uses 16 bit bytes to represent 65,536 characters. This replaces the older 8 bit bytes which could only represent 256 characters. With the Unicode character set, all characters, of all languages, are available simultaneously for use anywhere in the operating system, application, or content.
Windows NT 5.0 will expand on this universal language support by making the user interface language independent. The same user interface code can support all languages (when language modules for all languages have been written). With NT as a foundation, all Microsoft products will eventually follow and become language independent.
The 31 Flavors of Windows NT
In about the year 2001, it is likely that: (1) Windows NT will still have a Windows NT workstation version, (2) NT workstation-lite (Office NT and Home NT) will replace Windows 98, successor to Windows 95, (3) NT servers will have a Standard NT version between Small Office NT and Enterprise NT, (4) Portable NT will replace Windows CE for handheld computers and cell phones, and (5) At Work NT will be used in embedded controls for television sets, DVD players, appliances, office equipment, automobiles, and industrial devices. With NT operating all known computer configurations, the 'NT' of 'Windows NT' will fade away and the ubiquitous operating system, that operates everywhere, will be known as 'Windows'.
How Long?
The last operating system designed to operate all known computer configurations was IBM's OS/360, announced in 1965 and delivered in partial working order in 1968. Thirty years later, renamed and updated versions of OS/360 still operated almost all mainframe computers. OS/360 created the paradigm that operating systems existed and that applications were separate from operating systems. Windows 01, in about 2001, nee Windows NT 6.0, may reverse that paradigm creation by creating a paradigm in which applications and operating systems are one-in-the-same, a continuum of features and function.
IBM was the creation of Tom Watson Sr., who influenced IBM into his 80's, and who even influenced the creation of OS/360, ten years after his death. Microsoft is the creation of Bill Gates. In 30 years, Bill will be in his 70's and probably still having fun at Microsoft.
Comments
Please let us know how you like this article, or if you had any questions. What would you like to see in the future? For more visit www.ArchiveBuilders.com. Please send your comments to mailto:SteveGilheany@ArchiveBuilders.com. (310) 937-7000.
Sidebar
How did the buccaneers remember how many bits were in a byte? They called the bits pieces-of-eight. How did the buccaneers remember how many bits were in a quarter of a byte? They called them two-bits.
Acknowledgements
Reprinted from Archive Planning, Volume 1, number 10, Archive Builders' analysis newsletter for document management.
All trademarks are the property of their respective holders.
Steve Gilheany Archive Builders 1147 Manhattan Avenue, Suite 322 Manhattan Beach, CA 90266 Tel: (310) 937-7000 Fax: (310) 937-7001
Archive Builders consults and teaches courses in document imaging and document management for documents of all types.
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----- Course Description -----
The next three day UCLA Extension class on Document Imaging and Document Management is planned for April, 1998. in Downtown Los Angeles at the World Trade Center. The dates have not been set yet, but the tentative days are Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. The class usually meets from 1 PM to 9 PM on Thursday and Friday, and from 9 AM to 5:00 PM on Saturday. The fee is about $375.00.
This course is for managers who have been assigned to specify, install, or manage a document imaging system, and must start immediately. Students will gain an understanding of how document imaging can be used and managed in both small and large scale enterprises. Document imaging is the process of taking documents out of file cabinets and storing them in a computer. Students will learn about the technology of scanning, importing, transmitting, storing, protecting, locating, retrieving, viewing, and printing documents. Image and document formats, multimedia, rich text, GIS (Geographic Information Systems), CAD (Computer Aided Design), and image enabled databases will be discussed. System design issues in hardware, software, ergonomics, and workflow will be covered. Emerging technologies such as the DVD Digital Video Disk and very high speed Internet, intranet, and extranet links and protocols will be discussed. The course will include the DVD's role in completing the merging to the PC and television, the merging of telephony, cable, and the Internet, the merging of home and office, the merging of business and entertainment, and the management of the resulting document types. Many professionals including records managers, librarians, and archivists work with document management issues every day. While not limited to these professionals, this course builds on the broad range of tools and techniques that exist in these professions. The class content is designed so that students can benefit from each part of the class without fully understanding every technical detail presented. This course is for non-technical managers. Several system designs will be done based on system requirements provided by the students. Students are encouraged to bring the requirements for their planned document imaging system to class.
For information, please contact the instructor, at mailto:SteveGilheany@ArchiveBuilders.com. also SteveGilheany@worldnet.att.net (310) 937-7000. Instructor: Steve Gilheany, BA CS, MBA, MLS Specialization in Information Science, CDIA (Certified Document Imaging System Architect), Sr. Systems Engineer, Archive Builders.
Courses not offered through UCLA Extension may be presented March 14, 15, and 16, or March 21, 22, and 23, 1998 in Singapore, and in June, 1998 in Kansas City, Kansas.
The following is offered to reduce duplication: This posting has been cross listed on the following lists: ALA-LITA-L, Archives, Arlis-L, DigLib, DigLib-ns, DPRA, DPRANews, ERECS-L, HIM-L, ImageLib, LibLicense-L, PACS-L, PAMList, RecMgmt, and SLA-DITA. If you can suggest other lists that might have readers that are interested in the topic, please let me know and I will subscribe to those lists and post this message to those lists. If you can post it more easily than I can, please let me know and I will ask one person to post it to each list.
Thank you for your interest.
Steve
Steve Gilheany Tel: (310) 937-4757 Fax: (310) 937-4758 mailto:SteveGilheany@worldnet.att.net