Flow My Thoughts, The IT Professor Said

OS Du Jour

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,4248,1230771,00.asp

New operating system? "We doan' need no steenkin' new operating system!" is one of my many rally cries [perhaps in itself an explanation why the expected rally fails to happen]. My oft-expressed rule-of-thumb is that it takes about two years to become really proficient in a new OS of the complexity of 32-bit Windows, another two years to roll it out, get everyone acculturated to it, and get the bugs worked out -- then you can enjoy your investment for a whole whopping year before starting the cycle all over again!

Indeed, if you are particularly desirous of being on the bleeding edge, since details of any upcoming OS are available months in advance of its scheduled advent, then you never have any period of functional stability. This does not see to me to be A Good Thing.

The announcement of delays in the rollout of "Longhorn" [I don't know if it frightens me, but it sure frightens Bill Gates] is, according to this article, not causing undue bearning of hearts outside that in my own breast, which remains quiet as a cooing dove at the prospect of Windows 2000 keeping on for several more years.