Rant Mode Equals One: Next Generation Windows Services Fun!

Next Generation? Hardly!

There's a cynical side to me, sure.

Every time I see a new press announcement from Microsoft, typically I have to bite my tongue. Sometimes pretty hard. But the latest one, well, it's pretty much over the edge. It begs the question, or rather, all questions. It's going beyond vapor-ware and stall-ware into the realm of God-knows-what-it-means-ware.

I'd like to explore this new idea fairly closely, mostly for the comic value it brought my day. It doesn't help matters much when you consider all of the cool acronyms that can be made out of the abbreviation for their new product idea: "NGWS."
Let's start by looking a bit at the press announcement about it in the LA Times:

"Microsoft's new initiative--called Next Generation Windows Services--aims to combine Windows products and the Internet in a way that could transform how information is communicated and how transactions are conducted.

But in addition to the antitrust cloud hanging over Microsoft's head, several Microsoft rivals--Sun Microsystems, IBM, Oracle Corp. and Linux--are racing ahead with competing products and systems that could leave the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant in the dust."

North Gastronomical Western Sounds

Wow! Will this be the next Cairo? You remember Cairo don't you? It was that object-oriented Unix Killer that Windows 2000 might have been, had it ever been a real product. God only knows if it was at one time. Maybe NGWS will be like that Unix-like product that Microsoft promised me and the rest of its customers in 1992--the one that has mysteriously never materialized.

Maybe this is going to rear its ugly head when Windows NT, 2000, 98, Windows Millennium, DOS and CPM all merge sometime before the end of time. Maybe this will be that DNA stuff they promised last year!

No, this is going to be a new product. Golly I can't wait. No, really, I'm being honest--I can't wait; I mean I'm not going to wait, in fact. Why wait? I've already got something that's changing the way that "transactions are conducted" and "information is communicated"--it's called open source software and the Internet.