Moving From Fiji to Vienna
Microsoft's upcoming releases for improvements to Vista are called Fiji and Vienna. The feature sets for the releases highlight my issues with Microsoft's OS group's development. They are huge feature sets that must be applied (and completed) all at the same time.
James Kyton says:
And that is why Microsoft is planning a “Vista R2″, codename ‘Fiji’. From what little information is available we know that this will be a minor release sometime in 2008.
Windows Fiji
-The UI will be updated with things that were originally promised for Vista, along with a more powerful sidebar, which will be more than just a dock for widgets (a.k.a. gadgets)-.Net Framework will be updated to 3.5 (or maybe even 4)
-WinFS will be applied over NTFS to give us Virtual Folders (or maybe just Saved Searches)
-All bundled application will be updated to newer versions
-Tighter integration with Windows Live. Probably through ‘Codename Nemo’, a media center application thats integrated with Messenger, Spaces, and probably lots of other Windows Live Services.
- We might see Monaco, a music authoring tool, similar to Apple’s Garageband.
- Default playback of HD-DVD (maybe even Blu-ray), Vista currently identifies these disks but cannot play them without an external decoder.
-A more advanced Speech Recognition
-NGSCB will be implemented to make the system more secure.
-New themes, icons, wallpapers, games, and minor tweaks to almost everything.
Why is it necessary to wait until "2008" for this? Why do these need to come as one release?
Kyton says:
Although Fiji doesn’t sound too exciting yet, new features are bound to be added. Still, it might just be a way to keep us quiet while they work on Vienna.
If you want to "keep us quiet" then make these available when they are complete individually. Don't make me wait for Monaco (which will likely be the MS Publisher of music software), before you give me NGSCB.
Also, don't force me to eat your Monaco in order to get other updates.
I pray every day that with Vienna, Microsoft takes more of a Linux approach and gives me options for what I do and do not choose to update my machine with.
Lastly, I want to briefly discuss this quote from James Kyton:
Windows Vista is a huge improvement over previous versions, and has many great features that makes it a must have (despite what many might say).
When Windows XP came out, both Windows 98 and Windows ME were utterly unusable. XP has some minor annoyances and is certainly no OSX, but it is stable for a MS desktop OS.
Vista certainly has impressive features - but I'm not convinced that it's vital to my survival to take the risk of upgrading. I run a lot of software and upgrading is scary. I am reasonably sure that I will upgrade at some point - but I'll wait until I get a new laptop.
Blogged from the Sai Oak in Ocean Shores, Washington
Comments