... NinetyWhat??

The Microsoft saga continues with all the political manoeuvring and posing of a third rate soapie, and a media roll-out of propaganda worthy of George Orwell's "Big Brother" (1984).

While the MS vs USDOJ anti-trust legal case winds its way to a September hearing, MS is claiming victory in the courts over 95/IE bundling/unbundling decision. Which is rather amusing as 95 has now been superseded - so therefore the case (which was tied to 95 on a technicality) is redundant anyway.

Included in the material for the September hearing are accusations of conspiratorial approaches on Microsofts part to deliberately and illegally divide the browser market, bullying tactics with OEMs and restrictive deals with ISP's. Microsoft say it's been "misinterpreted".

Microsoft is also personally mailing thousands of their resellers and partners around the world protesting their innocence, accusing the USDOJ of victimising them and trying to prevent the "innovation" that Microsoft claims its users are "demanding".

Then there's the "launch" of Win98 - botched public demos (it crashed big time), a rushed launch designed to get the product into circulation before the courts could make them change it, and stuff-ups in the retail embargo. All material for a great melodrama.

So what do we have now in Microsoft's Userland? Windows 3.1, Win95, Win98, WindowsCE, NT3.51, NT4, NT5 (beta), and yet to be developed but in planning NT6 in two flavours - one for business users and another for ordinary consumers. Microsoft's official plan is to *reduce* the number of operating systems they have to support (reduce? huh? I must have missed something here). It seems the way they plan to do this is flood the market with "new" products and refuse to support the old ones. So what happens to all the users of no longer supported software? The consumers Microsoft claims to be innovating for?

According to a report into operating systems published in February this year, in use desktop computer share by OS was Win95 17%, WinNT 3% and MacOS 16%, with the balance apparently mainly win3.1 and DOS! (Yes, there are still a lot of desktop computers, in small and large businesses, running DOS applications!) (alternative os's such as unix/linux flavours, BeOS and OS2 etc are there but not statistically relevant - yet. Ed.)

The Win95 bug-fix roll-out (AKA Win98) has already been widely criticised as little more than a patch up for things that never worked properly in 95, with very little "innovation" that Bill Gates protests so loudly about to everyone who'll listen. Many sources claim 98 should have been labelled Win95.1 or 95.5 and made available for free. None of the "new features" it adds are truly revolutionary - all have been available for download from somewhere on the net for free to those who care to look for them.

Some aspects of the Windows directions manifested on the 98 desktop are disturbingly reminiscent of the classic Orwellian 1984 scenario. Vendors are paying Microsoft to push their advertising onto the 98 desktop. There's bound to be an option to remove it or turn it off ... maybe, if you can find it. The 98 interface is so tightly web integrated that it won't be long before you find things that won't work unless you have an internet connection (hmmm ... this is good for ISP's - maybe I should stop protesting so loudly??) One of the supposedly revolutionary win98 features (which has been on other OS's for some time) is an auto update which will scan your computers software, and automatically connect you to (you guessed it) microsoft.com to get the latest updates. Two questions that have not been adequately answered yet are whether you as the user will a) have any real choice in whether you accept their "upgrades" and any costs associated with it; and b) even if the choice is there, will the new average user, who is not really computer literate, realise they can choose to say "no"? I also wonder what MS will do with the audit info if you have other vendors products installed.

Microsoft claims they are trying to make computers easier to use - does this mean they don't think the average user is capable of learning how to use one? There is an old adage used in many fields of endeavour - "use it or loose it". This applies to the human brain just as much as any other appendage, muscle or organ. Will a side-effect of "making computers easier to use" be that computer users will not even try to learn, but become obedient slaves to the "start" button and whatever directions or distractions Microsoft or their paying customers decide to push onto the desktop and under your nose?

So will you, as a loyal Windows 95 user, line up for 98? Probably - 'cause the MS media machine and every salesman with commission $$ in the eyes will tell you that you NEED to. Will there be any new 98 only applications? Apart from 98 specific technical tools, pundits are saying probably not. After all, Windows has virtually reached the end of it's life - Microsoft themselves have been saying for many years they fully intend to phase windows out and replace it with NT. Win98 is the last of it's kind.

So, do you really need 98? Well, maybe you should do some serious research and look around BEFORE you ask the salesperson for their opinion.

Further reading:
Yahoo News - Microsoft Antitrust Case
http://headlines.yahoo.com/Full_Coverage/Tech/Microsoft/
Yahoo News - Windows 98 Launch
http://headlines.yahoo.com/Full_Coverage/Tech/Windows_98/
ZDNet's Jesse Bersts AnchorDesk -Thursday, June 25, 1998
http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/story/story_2209.html
And if you really must ask the salesman what he thinks about his product, visit Bill Gates at:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/

Footnote:
A regional computer support technician (not one of ours) running a small business locally has been quoted saying 95 has been good for his business - which is fixing up Windows 95 related problems. He is really looking forward to win98.