Microsoft's Midori -- a future without Windows
By Joshua Topolsky 
posted Jul 30th 2008 9:16PM
posted Jul 30th 2008 9:16PM
The basis for the platform centers around research related to Microsoft's Singularity project, and envisions a distributed environment where applications, documents, and connectivity are blurred in a cloud-computing phantasmagoria which can be run natively or hosted across multiple systems. The researchers are working to create a concurrent / parallel distribution of resources, as well as a method of handling applications across separate machines -- religiously-dubbed the Asynchronous Promise Architecture -- which will set the stage for a backwards-compatible operating system built from the ground up, with networks of varying size in mind. Says the SD Times, "The Midori documents foresee applications running across a multitude of topologies, ranging from client-server and multi-tier deployments to peer-to-peer at the edge, and in the cloud data center. Those topologies form a heterogeneous mesh where capabilities can exist at separate places." Like it technical? Hit the read link for an in-depth look at the possible shape of Microsoft's future.
[Via Yahoo!]
Windows Midori. Mac OS X rip off.
Yeah that made sense... the Midori description sounds exactly like OSX... yep...
lf you are an Apple fanboy, please stay away from Engadget and go waste your life away on TUAW.
Try Linux, and you're there.
"applications, documents, and connectivity are blurred in a cloud-computing phantasmagoria which can be run natively or hosted across multiple systems", "concurrent / parallel distribution of resources", "a method of handling applications across separate machines"? We have that, thanks, it's called Linux. The only thing I find amazing about this announcement is that they claim it will be backwards compatible.
Are you being facetious or just plain stupid?
I honestly hope it's the former, because if it's the latter, you need some serious help.
Evan said Midori sounded like Mac OS X. To me, it sounded like I was on some very hard drugs.
"...envisions a distributed environment where applications, documents, and connectivity are blurred in a cloud-computing phantasmagoria which can be run natively or hosted across multiple systems..."
yup, someone's on acid.
Mac OS XI, Microsoft Midori Ripoff
But really, that last paragraph is way to vague
@ SuperSexyErik (^_^):
They licensed those ideas, and then built on them.
@striker
If you're an apple fanboy, the engadget bloggers gladly welcome you, but the commenters want you to go to TUAW
"Try Linux, and you're there."
No, not really, but we're getting there. OpenAFS is a pretty good distributed filesystem, but nobody really uses it. It handles things like grouping shares from many machines into a single share, and concurrent writes of the same data to different machines across the network.
But it sounds like Midori is going to do something like clustering, too. Right now, beyond remote compiling and running daemons on one machine and a front end on another (mpd rocks, and so will deluge in 0.6!), Linux just doesn't have that for home use. But, if MS starts talking this up some more, I'm sure someone will tackle this. I think the infrastructure is there, but we'll probably need some more specialized governors/schedulers, whatever is involved.
Microfot Midori! Nice name! Midori is Japanese for "Green"
@d
Did you really miss the sarcasm? Really?
Maybe that means it's environmentally friendly... That's a joke, but actually, if it has anything to do with cloud computing, it could be more environmentally friendly...
at last Balmer got to some sense
Or better yet up and put your head through your screen. Doing so would at least rid the internet of one more person who can't do anything other then suck Apple's teet.
So during the product launch, there won't be a blue screen but a green one?
(not an iSheep, just the first thing I thought of)
@Evan
Guess not... well, Brian thinks it does...
Wait, they botched vista, pitched windows 7 (vista reloaded ultimatum), experimented with mojivey and now they want to start mind fucking us with midori melon liqueur crap? At least get one OS right first.
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I personally cannot understand this. First people say "Windows sucks, use Linux (or Mac OS X)". Then Microsoft tries to do better. Then people say "that is a rip-off". Seriously, if you have so strong negative feelings about Microsoft itself, you shouldn't post your biased comments here. Thanks.
At times it make me feel like linux, users don´t bash windows cause linux is technically superior, it´s just cause they can´t stand microsoft getting rich, and Mac users feel there ego´s ripped when Microsoft takes anything they brag about and make it better....
Cough* Cough*, they forgot to mention that this project is already about a year old. Its also Open Source, More secure than a Federal Penitentiary and runs on any system known to man, yes it sounds like linux but I promise it is much faster, more secure, and the Architecture is completely f'ing awesome.
http://research.microsoft.com
The possibilities are intriguing, but I'd like to be sure Microsoft has some of the issues worked out first. What if you're not hooked up to a network connection? Even today it happens sometimes. And this entirely microcode-based kernel... will developers know WTF to do with it to get their apps to run? I'm as eager to move beyond Windows as anyone, but take it slow Microsoft.
They are taking it slow... we won't see this for years. The article states that this concept is "predicated on the prevalence of connected systems". And it also says much of this phase is focused on researching the viability of backwards compatibility. In other words, they are fully addressing all those concerns.
I realize it's easier to stay uninformed, so while you are striving for ease, don't put forth the effort to communicate with the general public.
@Alexzander,
I will be sure to mention these points to MS. I am sure that otherwise they would have completely missed them.
Imagine that, they would have gone live with the software, then BAM !!! some one will not have the internet hooked up and WHAM !! the softwre would not work. Everyone will be standing around looking at each other saying, "Who didn't think of that one" !!
Thanks again Alexzander
@kccboy204
Thanks for your sarcasm, because Microsoft has NEVER screwed up the launch of a new OS. Nope, not once. They've never had a problem.
Adobe AIR (nee Flex) is designed to seamlessly transition from online to offline while persisting user data, this is a fundamental aspect of moving apps to "the cloud". Microsoft is preparing for the future, and rightly so. I can't wait to see what they come up with.
You want these two paragraphs from the article:
"The Midori documents indicate that the company has not decided what user interface abstractions are appropriate when applications cut across boundaries, or how to combine the best qualities of rich client applications and Web applications.
“A lot of these problems are being solved, at least partially, by the ideas of store-and-forward and message synchronization,” Hammond noted. “Google Gears, Adobe AIR, even the mobile OSes with things like SMS can handle occasional connectivity. Why shouldn’t this be built into core OS communication protocols, especially if they are asynchronous by default?” he asked."
... Who's footing the bill for the servers? This is likely to be a subscription environment. You'll get all your documents saved on Microsoft servers. You might be able to print them out, but unlikely to download them all to a removable drive because you'll have an awfully long wait to get ALL your docs. On top of that, they will likely be encrypted and authenticated against Microsoft servers "for the protection of your files" making them harder to transfer to another service or machine. Vendor lock to the extreme. I see why Microsoft wants in.
There's just too much control in one company's hands for me.
There's half a chance it won't be meant less for end users and more for web application developers. Scaling web applications for millions of users is a very difficult problem. It requires hooking together multiple servers, and getting all those servers to share files, split up computation tasks, and optimize bandwidth is huge pain. Having someone else that for you would be a huge boon to developers.
Amazon Web Services and Google App Engine, among others, are heading in this direction, but I don't think they've gone so far as to write an operating system optimized for this sort of thing.
I dont think it is feasible until we have at least 10mbps in every home (AKA no dial up/no slow DSL) and we have super reliable ISP's.
They aren't necessarily talking about running applications from the Internet. I think they are referring to a more centralized processing platform for the local network, like application servers etc.
Connectivity issues aren't the main problem. The real problem is that MS is giving a heads-up that the successor to the successor to Vista will be so inefficient that it'll require cloud computing resources to maintain a Word document...
Given the fact that most european countries have an average of more than 10mb/s i don't think that that's far away....i'd still think that those speeds would not be perfect for it as well,so i suggest we protest in the streets and DEMAND that we all get fiber optics and 100mb/s net speed!!!Who's with me? lol ^^
so is this post-windows 7?
by the way, "midori" is japanese for "green" - rather appropriate in our environmentally-conscious world...
www.greendayeveryday.com
It's too bad computers aren't green... at all. Not a single one of them.
@bigD
My tinkertoy computer runs using all wood. biodegradable ftw!
BigD,
Here's a green computer for you...
http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/2069186/2111771/2129297/051122_giz_100Laptop_tn.jpg
its only $100 too! er... uh... wait a sec...
:P
Uh huh, my brother-in-law's motherboard is green, so are his fan lights. And not just any green... neon green.
Midori is also a bright green melon flavored liquor.
Let's see here...green...clouds....phantasmagoria...absinthe comes to mind.
I feel like this is something NONE OF US should be even bothering to waste our times thinking about until about 10 years from now.
I disagree. This is how most servers function anyway, and for the economical computer user with a family this type of topology creates an easy computing platform for your home.
Hehy Rick White.
Again, in 10 years maybe Microsoft will have this out the door. I wouldn't worry about it.
Is this the same guy with the dirty girlfriend?
Lets be honest here, if Midori presumably loses all backwards compatibility with previous Microsoft operating systems (aka, Windows). What use will it be? Why should anyone bother with this?
If it doesn't lose backwards compatibility, then you might as well call it Windows 8. Though, just in my opinion anyway.
its saying it will be backwards compatible.. Re read the article bro..
Except it doesn't say that. It clearly says
"Backwards compatibility with legacy applications and hardware has also been considered;"
Also, I'm not your bro, guy.
Quit calling me guy, dude.
Listen guys, this is aboot diplomacy, this is aboot respect!
RTFA
10 bucks WINE will work on it.
@ Bleck, I'm not your guy, buddy.
I have been reading up on Microsoft's singularity project. I even downloaded the RDK to play with it. Available here. http://www.codeplex.com/singularity
This is still a long way out, and Microsoft will need to greatly help developers transition into a completely virtualized world. I feel that the ability's this platform will bring to the table are fantastic and the future.
We cannot stay planted in old world technology for too long.
"I feel that the ability's this platform will bring to the table are fantastic and the future."
Your right..it does have a certain Skynet kind of feel with "Singularity" and all....... :D
I'm all for this. I'd like to see how the computer world reacts to a new category/platform of OS's. Maybe it'll be the virus free windows alternative. I'd really like to see how it's like
If you want to see what a virus free Windows alternative is like try Ubuntu Linux. The learning curve is much steeper, but once you reach the top it's like stepping off of a smelly elevator.
What if he still wants to play games?
Ubuntu has Wine, but it's not nearly as capable as the actual environment.
Actually, it has gotten quite nearly as capable. With PlayOnLinux it's even easier as well.
DX10?
@Rick: Nearly yes, but not quite exact. I'll agree that Linux is an awesome OS, no problems there, but for playing games designed for Windows it isn't quite there yet.
I have hope though bud.
The more consumer-ease Linux gets, the better too. It's becoming quite the competitor.
I like linux, but like Ruben says, I want to play games. Easily, too.
But Linux is free! FREE! That has GOT to be worth SOMETHING! Are the game that you can't play on Linux free?
Oh well, also network adapter support in Linux is horrible.
What if I like smelly elevators?
Insert obligitory Midori Sour joke here.
I was thinking it's unwise to name a project after anything related to a black hole.
Color me intrigued. Is it hard for anyone else to imagine something like this? My brain is kinda scattered as to how it will play out. An actual new architecture and design fills me with curiosity. A new version of Windows is one thing, but this gives me something to really ponder about.
would that color be... green, maybe? :3
i agree, though, the idea IS very interesting. and it seems like a good response to google's plans to move everything online. sometimes i like being able to work offline.
And I thought Microsoft was dead, when in fact its just Window's retirement party. Although I for one won't touch it unless it is open source...
Do you own a Mac? If so, you should sell it and get a computer that runs Linux, otherwise you have double standards. "(O S)e(x)" isn't open source either.
they can't make the software they have out now work right... This worries me. Microsoft is just to big to be able to make anything work right. Just look at the zune, it didn't work with vista when it came out! Microsoft = Joke To bad the won't get the joke the company is to big for everyone to get the memo.
The Zune was out before Vista was available for purchase in January. When Vista was made available to consumers, it was compatible.
When you deal with supporting so many different pieces of hardware and devices, you're bound to run into bugs especially at the launch of a product. With so many consumers, it becomes not such a huge deal that there are bugs and problems at launch (See the iPhone 3G) but rather how quickly the company and developers respond to them and take action.
I believe this will work because instead of a new OS that is Windows NT with alot of code added on, they can start a brand new OS, maybe even fix all the root problems that windows suffered from.
I wonder how many of those features it'll keep when it comes to release.
Welcome to the Microsoft marketing blitz courtesy of Crispin Porter + Bogusky.
Erik, please stop making us Mac users look bad.
I don't get it. Microsoft could certainly buy up Plan 9 from Lucent and do what Apple did with BSD and NextSTEP (the inputs into OS X) and have the best operating system available. Add an emulation layer for backwards compatibility, and they could "really" create value for their customer base and be innovative and make cloud computing real.
So why don't they? is the concept too complex for Microsot marketing to figure out? Would it be too hard to make it work with DRM? MS has PLENTY of super smart people, their research arm does AMAZING things, yet the products they put out are incredibly weak based on the resources going into them. With Office 2007 they finally made a product that actually differentiates itself from the products they originally copied (word perfect, lotus 1-2-3, HyperCard and Paradox/dBase). Vista is exactly what I would expect from MS second attempt at a 64 bit OS (MS:"third time's the charm"). As a 32 bit OS it's clumsy security band-aid approach is good from a band-aid perspective, but the truth is that quality, usability, and security all need to be architectural concerns, designed in from the beginning of a project to work (perhaps with enough refactoring or by adding aspect oriented code it could be made to work).
The same reason we have .NET, Silverlight, and DirectX. Control over the medium. Microsoft makes the rules. They use their gorilla to push all the monkeys out of the cage and they decide how it works. They decide how to charge and they decide how much. If they adopted an already existing technology, they can't dictate what happens. They learned that with Java.
...and here come all the bad "Midori Sour" puns...
Is it wrong that I only wanted to comment on how beautiful that photo is?
I mean look at it... So purdy...
Considering everyone else is commenting on how Linux is better, that Windows and Microsoft suck, and that Microsoft copies OSX, your comments are very welcome, because at least it talks about the article at hand (in some way).
I swear, any post involving Microsoft and their OSs seems to lose its focus once you read the comments section, and its because Jehovahs Linux and Born Again OSX people seem to like to take a few minutes of your time to tell you about the benefits of their OS of choice that Windows users don't give a shit about. Leave us the fuck alone!
The image is nice, and so is this concept. It is, in my belief, many years away, and if ISPs still feel like capping our transfers (Fuck you Rogers), then this isn't going to be viable, regardless of who makes it.
hes not making mac users look bad.
he is right.
apple has been pushing their OS past its former edges ever since OSX came about,
while MS has been trying to expand within the same windows framework.
i agree, imho, OSX is more "with the times" than windows currently is.
but if MS does pull this off well,
I might make the switch back.
XP killed mac's OS back in the day,
Im ready for MS to be innovative again.
I would like computers and network speeds to reach a point where in a network of PCs there is no central PC. The one not being used by a person does the computing power and tasks of others in the cloud. I think we will need over 10gbps speeds between desktops to do that. Kind of like a decentralized system.. take one away and another picks up the slack since they are all functioning as one anyway.
yes. let's connect all our computers in a giant network, and design the architecture so that they all function as one gigantic overmind. nothing wrong with that idea! and i think every 5-dollar sci-fi novelist would agree with you there, too.
Until ISPs start acting like a utility and do what they are suppose to do, which is to provide bandwidth, how can we trust anything which puts us fully online? The ISPs will only be emboldened to dictate the future of the Net.
Microsoft always manages to come up with the dopiest, most idiotic codenames for their projects - Longhorn, Janus, Trainyard, Asteroid Midori.. the list goes on.
Every one of them sounds like a gay bar.
Gay bar? what's your point?
Speaking of gay, you have "boni" in your name...
Hey when are we going to see "Windows Port Hole"!!!
Haha, PERFECT comment to post after a post talking about gay.
Midori sounds like a hybrid kernel OS which services "can" be distributed over a network (as in cloud computing). In other words, their idea seems to be that of bringing cluster computing to the personal computer market, making systems more viral and less dependable of a particular hardware as in a monolithic architecture (lets remember Linux uses a monolithic kernel). As for the need of broadband, we can all see wimax on the horizon.
We've heard this before people... remember the Cairo project? A few of those features trickled into NT 4, and then XP.. don't get your panties in a wad just yet. Cairo was in incubation for 5 years, expect a similar situation with Midori.
Entirely new OS architecture is very intriguing. However, when taking into account the popularity and effectiveness of OS's derived from and modeled after UNIX, a technology invented nearly 40 years ago, one has to wonder how many times the wheel can be reinvented as it were.
I admittedly know little about the inner workings of an OS, however. It'll be exciting to see what develops from this.
I personally believe OS X is the best desktop OS ever.
Which begs the obvious question -- did they get it so spectacularly right when Unix was developed that the core concepts couldn't be replaced with something better? Or have more modern efforts failed due to a lack of vision?
I suspect it's the latter. I think it's more a matter of Microsoft failing to innovate so much that Apple was able to reinvent itself, base their current OSes on Unix and it was still 'good enough' to be a leader today.
Imagine what could be if we wiped the slate clean and started fresh as Microsoft envisions.
Unfortunately, a lot of the work is not pretty and doesn't lend itself to immediate results. Lots of unglamorous code needs to be written just to reach equivilence with modern OSes.
I don't think its a failure to innovate, but it can't. There is only so much you can do with one architecture. If you build a new one (at the cost of losing all backwards compatibility) you are a fresh clean slate. Now we can have a modern OS that still doesn't rely on code from Windows 3.1.
OS X the best desktop operating system ever? I don't think so.
I use Windows XP, Slackware Linux and OS X 10.4.11 on a daily basis. I prefer a truly open Linux environment to any of the alternatives, but that is just my opinion.
I think OS X gets a lot of things *right* and is a really good example of a Unix-based operating system that doesn't rely on X.org or XFree86 for its GUI. Application installation is (usually) very beautifully done with self-contained application packages that can be drug onto the computer to install or into the trashcan to uninstall. Application crash recovery is (usually) very graceful, as long as you can regain control of Finder in order to perform a force quit on the application that is misbehaving. The IME is very well done and one can add accents to letters or type in other languages with very little effort.
However, there are a lot of things I dislike about OS X. The update system is infuriating. Requiring me to reboot after an automatic itunes or safari update is just plain ridiculous -- I don't even use itunes or safari! I wish there was more GUI-level control of certain Darwin-level events, like automount and advanced user management (hidden user accounts and the like). I wish there was a way to open the DVD drive without having to hold F12 (I use a PC USB keyboard without the eject key). I wish the command to quit an application (cmd+q) wasn't so close to the command to switch applications (cmd+tab) -- more than once I've accidentally closed a program trying to switch applications. On that note, why do I have to close everything twice? Sure, the notion of closing the last window actually "hiding" the application so it opens more quickly the next time I need it is pretty neat, but I wish there was more control over this (outside of the third party application Stoplight).
Maybe I'm just nitpicking, and I do truly believe that OS X is a great example of what a UNIX operating system can be, but I don't think it's the best desktop OS at all.