Re: Windows is 'collapsing,' Gartner analysts warn

On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 3:27 PM, Joe Pluta <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Gartner says you need application backwards compatibility, through
virtualization. Hmm. An operating system that can be extended to new
hardware without affecting existing codebase, and can even support older
architectures using virtualization. Sounds like a page out of the IBM i
handbook.

Yes and no. The only OS Vendor that has made clean breaks with it's
past and used virtualization technology to stay compatible was Apple
with it's Mac OS Increments (Recently: OS 9 -> OS X, OS X (PPC) -> OS
X (x86)).

Apple is able change both the underlying hardware and the operating
system code by using virtualization technology. However, that
compatibility was not 100% - both Rosetta (the PPC Emulator) and OS
Class support had a fair share of issues in both performance and
compatibility. It had the advantage of bringing a fully current
operating system, though.

IBM i "just" virtualizes the hardware (TIMI). So far, that has
hindered IBMs to bring a full technical rehaul to the platform, like
full unicode support throughout the operating system, object names of
arbitrary length, etc. pp. Most additions to IBM i were "tacked on",
just like Microsoft did with Windows.