The future of the OS market: verticality, scalability and freedom
On Habré already shot out on the new Nokia N900 (it is technically called the RX-51) with the OS Maemo 5, the own name of the OS Fremantle (on the Linux kernel). The review to which Habr, and all English-speaking sources refers, was written by Eldar Murtazin - he was the first in the world. The review doesn’t impress me personally, fake, and I am inclined to believe the author and the declared TTX of this pill.
I would also like to express a couple of my thoughts and talk not about the device and not even about Nokia, but about the future of the OS as a whole, in connection with the fait accompli - the appearance of the N900. About the near future. Maybe dream. Do not judge strictly and do not throw rags at once, let it be fiction or cyberpunk.
Who else to discuss, if not with you? I would be grateful for all the reasoned considerations on the account of our future in connection with the stated principle of "vertical OS".
The most impressive event in connection with the appearance of information about the N900 for me is the funeral of Symbian OS, specifically Symbian S60. Under the pressure of irrefutable facts, we have to admit that Nokia really merges its offspring, Symbian, outright. With the release of the N900, Maemo becomes its flagship, i.e. Linux. Making such a decision (and giving Sybian to the Symbian Foundation), of course, was not easy - with Symbian, 20 million lines of code and years of work and investment. I also feel sorry for him - in my all-smartphone smartphone it was the S60, and I generally like it - with its simplicity, adequacy, practicality, speed and reliability of work, low system requirements.
')
The reasons for the refusal were not short-term market benefits, but Nokia’s good understanding of the structure of the upcoming 2010 fundamental division of the OS market. Sorry for the long quote, I have to bring it in order to understand the author’s arguments:
“In this situation, the price becomes the driving force for the S60, devices will be much cheaper in the fall of 2010, Maemo devices will become leaders, S60 smartphones from Sony Ericsson are on the market, only this manufacturer will fight for the smartphone market using There are no opportunities for the company to develop the direction of Linux, although it is actively negotiating with a number of players, trying to find a compromise solution and create its own vertical OS. So far to no avail.
In a similar situation for Nokia's Maemo smartphones, there is a big time lag with competitors. In fact, we can say that only Nokia and Apple have the same solutions in 2010-2012, which will allow them to increase their market share in this segment. For Samsung, the time is somewhat missed, but due to marketing tricks it will not be so noticeable. Already today, widgets are distributed not only on phones, but also on netbooks, the integration of interface elements will continue. But it is impossible to call the appearance of a full-fledged scalable vertical OS. For LG, there is no prospect in this direction so far, the companies are not aware of the market trend, they are just beginning to see the outlines of the future market. Sony Ericsson has a problem period, the company has lost two years, the new management will obviously spend about a year on reorganization, the manufacturer will be able to enter the race not earlier than mid-2010, and the results will be visible in 2011-2012, when Google, Nokia, Apple are already full to measure their strength in this market. For the first time, companies integrate services, software, devices into one vertical, you can conditionally call this market vertical. This is the main difference from previous years, the paradigm is changing. The market becomes vertical, the devices are interconnected by a single OS, but their technical characteristics and dimensions differ.
I hope that such a “short” story allowed you to understand why Nokia chose Linux / Maemo as the OS for the future vertical market. ”
Murtazin introduces the concept of "vertical OS", suitable, with minimal modifications, to work on the player, phone, PDA, netbook and desktop. According to his thoughts, today Apple has such a platform, with the release of the N900 - Nokia, and slowly working but creating a springboard for its complete victory in this direction of Google.
(Microsoft has not yet come to grips with the 2010 market situation and therefore is losing its distance today. Their solutions for windows Mobile 6.5 (and 7, 7.5, and 8) clearly show this. They don’t know how and don’t want to work to keep up with the trends , they don’t want to risk money - and therefore they have already lost. Samsung just lagged far behind. The rest of the market participants either irreparably lagged behind, or do not have the capacity to independently (outside alliances) cover such a range of devices.)
In fact, in this field, especially in the market of the highest segment of smartphones, according to Murtazin, in 2010–2012 only Apple plays in full force and Nokia just yesterday caught up with it.
I would not agree with this assessment. In my opinion, Google will actively invade here and shake up the market already in the middle of 2010. The main reference points for this entry are
- massive, in many lines and for many manufacturers, access to the Android device market in the fall of 2009. Many manufacturers launch many Android devices at once.
- the release of Android 2.0, the appearance on the market of devices on it
- The release of Chrome OS, snapshots of which will appear in 2009, and in mid-2010 netbooks (guglobuki) with preinstalled Chrome OS are already ready to be sold. Accordingly, the entire network infrastructure of Google to support this OS, its applications will be ready for this on the server side.
Given the extremely low prices for small android devices and the expected low prices for Google in 2010, we expect it to blow up the market. In addition, Apple never tried to enter the netbook market, didn’t master the MID niche, didn’t make the Internet Tablet PC, nor the large screen PMP (or, say, a projector, like the Chinese). Apple focused on their favorite toys - MacBook, iPod, iTouch. In its position a huge hole gapes in the very center.
Google will fill it in the first place with the appearance of guglobuks on the shelves with Chrome OS. If this happens within the time limit and they will be expectedly cheap - the mass market will be all of it.
Let's not forget that Chrome Os is built on the Linux kernel and is an open system. Guglobuk will be thoroughly compatible with everything with which it is possible both for hardware and software: you can install any other Linux on them, on the one hand. For the Chinese, nothing will be worth it for cheap guglobs, ideally compatible with Chrome OS, and pre-installing it on the other.
All this is very good for further progress. And reliably guarantees us from Apple prices in this breakthrough segment.
Why do I say that Murtazin introduces the concept of "vertical OS"? Because Google does not find such a stable term in the relevant literature. Apparently, he came up with himself.
I am not in favor of multiplying entities without need. Much more correct, in my opinion, to use the concept of OS scalability . Already about 12 years ago, there was obviously a good scalability of Unix systems available on desktops, in particular, such as Linux and BSD, and the useless scalability of Windows.
Scalability is an OS property that allows it to be used in systems of any scale. From high-performance server systems to desktops that manage the production or transport of computers, MID, laptops, netbooks, PDAs, smartphones and communicators to e-books, PMP, refrigerators and microwaves.
It is easy to see that in the 14 years that have passed since a full-fledged Windows OS appeared on a PC (I mean Windows 95, since 3.11 was not an OS, but a shell), Windows, with great difficulty, was able to master a serious server segment — without making up , Unix systems competition in the life support of the Internet infrastructure. Expansion is down, by now, failed. On a player and an e-book, on an ARM processor, modern Windows does not scale in principle, this direction in Microsoft was leaked. For ARM netbooks, MS has nothing but Windows CE.
It so happened that in 2009, sales of expensive desktops and especially expensive desktop operating systems are falling, and the PMP market, smartphones, communicators, netbooks, tablets flourish in spite of the crisis. Scalable free (and also proprietary) operating systems are growing.
I would venture to make a prediction: in the very near future, we will see a change in the OS market. The 14-year-old era of Microsoft monopoly will end. The era of diversity will come. On the one hand, there will be a truly mass market of various devices that go online - keyboard and keyboard, fit and do not fit in a pocket, universal and specialized. On the other hand, iron producers will finally begin to think about the compatibility of their hardware not only with Windows XP and Windows Vista. They will see the light and see, at least, Google's operating systems. And this, in turn, will ensure compatibility of all this hardware with the Linux kernel, and therefore, greater freedom for the user - he can easily install on the purchased netbook both Chrome, and (mother!) Android, and Maemo, and Debian, and Touch. OS, and Xubuntu or Kubuntu any modification. And if you want, they will install Windows. Freedom!
I think this is more than in our interests. Personally, I like this future.
The companies that offer scalable operating systems (and solutions for and for these operating systems) will start growing on the market. The decisive factor will be the scale down from the desktop and laptop. And those that do not offer - will lose their positions. (I think that Windows 7 will fail in the coming months just as Vista failed - without noise and crackling, but it won’t collect the expected money.)
The second feature, along with the freedom to choose the OS - the freedom to choose the platform. Tablets and netbooks on ARM for less than $ 400 are very interesting to me personally. The logic is simple: not everyone needs a desktop, especially if you are mobile and move around the city and around the planet a lot. On the other hand, there are many people who have both a desktop and a laptop, but they need other devices, and they are willing to pay for them, provided that they have the right consumer properties, suitability of their needs and an adequate price. Everyone's needs are different. I am an IT specialist, I have two desktops with Xubuntu, a full keyboard smartphone with Symbian, an e-book on the Linux kernel, PMP. My wife, math and psychotherapist, netbook and PMP. A daughter, a linguist, a large laptop with Windows Vista, and a lightweight netbook with Windows XP, and PMP.
Human needs are mobile and vary greatly from work, lifestyle and place of stay: for example, now there is a massive trend of replacing old ugly desktops like “iron box” on Nettop and a game console. Now that the niche of desktop computers is a little more than saturated, the development should go and take the path of greater flexibility, greater specialization and greater freedom of choice for the user. In full accordance with Toffler, by the way. The crisis only added an extra kick in this situation, which was already unsustainably balanced on the edge. The trends are logical, and it just had to happen.
In the struggle of open and closed scalable operating systems, the open ones will start winning very quickly (much faster than in 14 years). And here I would put on Google, the Linux kernel, and hardware compatible with the Linux kernel - and not on Apple. Apple will remain an expensive niche product with a great design.
We stop arguing - which is better, Windows or Linux. Because this argument will lose its meaning. We will not argue about the benefits of the platforms - someone will remain behind a large keyboard, someone with a small one, and someone will poke a finger at the virtual one, that's all the difference. The era of specialization and improvements in each niche will come: e-books on e-paper will be improved - so that it is even more pleasant to read them than paper books. Gaming consoles and nettops will be improved, computers will appear on the TV and home phones with Internet . Smartphones and communicators on different platforms will compete to better perform their main function within their budget niche. Intense competition allowed the competition for supply at increasingly lower prices.
And all these trends are pretty damn good.
And the whole business is in the initially correct architectural solution of the OS, which assumes easy scalability, including the separation of the core and the graphics subsystem.
This is exactly what the N900 review that appeared yesterday suggests. I don’t know if I put these thoughts right here in the OS - and not in the PDA, Smartphones or Netbooks. But I know for sure that it makes sense to discuss in essence exactly here, on Habré.
I would also like to express a couple of my thoughts and talk not about the device and not even about Nokia, but about the future of the OS as a whole, in connection with the fait accompli - the appearance of the N900. About the near future. Maybe dream. Do not judge strictly and do not throw rags at once, let it be fiction or cyberpunk.
Who else to discuss, if not with you? I would be grateful for all the reasoned considerations on the account of our future in connection with the stated principle of "vertical OS".
The most impressive event in connection with the appearance of information about the N900 for me is the funeral of Symbian OS, specifically Symbian S60. Under the pressure of irrefutable facts, we have to admit that Nokia really merges its offspring, Symbian, outright. With the release of the N900, Maemo becomes its flagship, i.e. Linux. Making such a decision (and giving Sybian to the Symbian Foundation), of course, was not easy - with Symbian, 20 million lines of code and years of work and investment. I also feel sorry for him - in my all-smartphone smartphone it was the S60, and I generally like it - with its simplicity, adequacy, practicality, speed and reliability of work, low system requirements.
')
The reasons for the refusal were not short-term market benefits, but Nokia’s good understanding of the structure of the upcoming 2010 fundamental division of the OS market. Sorry for the long quote, I have to bring it in order to understand the author’s arguments:
“In this situation, the price becomes the driving force for the S60, devices will be much cheaper in the fall of 2010, Maemo devices will become leaders, S60 smartphones from Sony Ericsson are on the market, only this manufacturer will fight for the smartphone market using There are no opportunities for the company to develop the direction of Linux, although it is actively negotiating with a number of players, trying to find a compromise solution and create its own vertical OS. So far to no avail.
In a similar situation for Nokia's Maemo smartphones, there is a big time lag with competitors. In fact, we can say that only Nokia and Apple have the same solutions in 2010-2012, which will allow them to increase their market share in this segment. For Samsung, the time is somewhat missed, but due to marketing tricks it will not be so noticeable. Already today, widgets are distributed not only on phones, but also on netbooks, the integration of interface elements will continue. But it is impossible to call the appearance of a full-fledged scalable vertical OS. For LG, there is no prospect in this direction so far, the companies are not aware of the market trend, they are just beginning to see the outlines of the future market. Sony Ericsson has a problem period, the company has lost two years, the new management will obviously spend about a year on reorganization, the manufacturer will be able to enter the race not earlier than mid-2010, and the results will be visible in 2011-2012, when Google, Nokia, Apple are already full to measure their strength in this market. For the first time, companies integrate services, software, devices into one vertical, you can conditionally call this market vertical. This is the main difference from previous years, the paradigm is changing. The market becomes vertical, the devices are interconnected by a single OS, but their technical characteristics and dimensions differ.
I hope that such a “short” story allowed you to understand why Nokia chose Linux / Maemo as the OS for the future vertical market. ”
Murtazin introduces the concept of "vertical OS", suitable, with minimal modifications, to work on the player, phone, PDA, netbook and desktop. According to his thoughts, today Apple has such a platform, with the release of the N900 - Nokia, and slowly working but creating a springboard for its complete victory in this direction of Google.
(Microsoft has not yet come to grips with the 2010 market situation and therefore is losing its distance today. Their solutions for windows Mobile 6.5 (and 7, 7.5, and 8) clearly show this. They don’t know how and don’t want to work to keep up with the trends , they don’t want to risk money - and therefore they have already lost. Samsung just lagged far behind. The rest of the market participants either irreparably lagged behind, or do not have the capacity to independently (outside alliances) cover such a range of devices.)
In fact, in this field, especially in the market of the highest segment of smartphones, according to Murtazin, in 2010–2012 only Apple plays in full force and Nokia just yesterday caught up with it.
I would not agree with this assessment. In my opinion, Google will actively invade here and shake up the market already in the middle of 2010. The main reference points for this entry are
- massive, in many lines and for many manufacturers, access to the Android device market in the fall of 2009. Many manufacturers launch many Android devices at once.
- the release of Android 2.0, the appearance on the market of devices on it
- The release of Chrome OS, snapshots of which will appear in 2009, and in mid-2010 netbooks (guglobuki) with preinstalled Chrome OS are already ready to be sold. Accordingly, the entire network infrastructure of Google to support this OS, its applications will be ready for this on the server side.
Given the extremely low prices for small android devices and the expected low prices for Google in 2010, we expect it to blow up the market. In addition, Apple never tried to enter the netbook market, didn’t master the MID niche, didn’t make the Internet Tablet PC, nor the large screen PMP (or, say, a projector, like the Chinese). Apple focused on their favorite toys - MacBook, iPod, iTouch. In its position a huge hole gapes in the very center.
Google will fill it in the first place with the appearance of guglobuks on the shelves with Chrome OS. If this happens within the time limit and they will be expectedly cheap - the mass market will be all of it.
Let's not forget that Chrome Os is built on the Linux kernel and is an open system. Guglobuk will be thoroughly compatible with everything with which it is possible both for hardware and software: you can install any other Linux on them, on the one hand. For the Chinese, nothing will be worth it for cheap guglobs, ideally compatible with Chrome OS, and pre-installing it on the other.
All this is very good for further progress. And reliably guarantees us from Apple prices in this breakthrough segment.
Why do I say that Murtazin introduces the concept of "vertical OS"? Because Google does not find such a stable term in the relevant literature. Apparently, he came up with himself.
I am not in favor of multiplying entities without need. Much more correct, in my opinion, to use the concept of OS scalability . Already about 12 years ago, there was obviously a good scalability of Unix systems available on desktops, in particular, such as Linux and BSD, and the useless scalability of Windows.
Scalability is an OS property that allows it to be used in systems of any scale. From high-performance server systems to desktops that manage the production or transport of computers, MID, laptops, netbooks, PDAs, smartphones and communicators to e-books, PMP, refrigerators and microwaves.
It is easy to see that in the 14 years that have passed since a full-fledged Windows OS appeared on a PC (I mean Windows 95, since 3.11 was not an OS, but a shell), Windows, with great difficulty, was able to master a serious server segment — without making up , Unix systems competition in the life support of the Internet infrastructure. Expansion is down, by now, failed. On a player and an e-book, on an ARM processor, modern Windows does not scale in principle, this direction in Microsoft was leaked. For ARM netbooks, MS has nothing but Windows CE.
It so happened that in 2009, sales of expensive desktops and especially expensive desktop operating systems are falling, and the PMP market, smartphones, communicators, netbooks, tablets flourish in spite of the crisis. Scalable free (and also proprietary) operating systems are growing.
I would venture to make a prediction: in the very near future, we will see a change in the OS market. The 14-year-old era of Microsoft monopoly will end. The era of diversity will come. On the one hand, there will be a truly mass market of various devices that go online - keyboard and keyboard, fit and do not fit in a pocket, universal and specialized. On the other hand, iron producers will finally begin to think about the compatibility of their hardware not only with Windows XP and Windows Vista. They will see the light and see, at least, Google's operating systems. And this, in turn, will ensure compatibility of all this hardware with the Linux kernel, and therefore, greater freedom for the user - he can easily install on the purchased netbook both Chrome, and (mother!) Android, and Maemo, and Debian, and Touch. OS, and Xubuntu or Kubuntu any modification. And if you want, they will install Windows. Freedom!
I think this is more than in our interests. Personally, I like this future.
The companies that offer scalable operating systems (and solutions for and for these operating systems) will start growing on the market. The decisive factor will be the scale down from the desktop and laptop. And those that do not offer - will lose their positions. (I think that Windows 7 will fail in the coming months just as Vista failed - without noise and crackling, but it won’t collect the expected money.)
The second feature, along with the freedom to choose the OS - the freedom to choose the platform. Tablets and netbooks on ARM for less than $ 400 are very interesting to me personally. The logic is simple: not everyone needs a desktop, especially if you are mobile and move around the city and around the planet a lot. On the other hand, there are many people who have both a desktop and a laptop, but they need other devices, and they are willing to pay for them, provided that they have the right consumer properties, suitability of their needs and an adequate price. Everyone's needs are different. I am an IT specialist, I have two desktops with Xubuntu, a full keyboard smartphone with Symbian, an e-book on the Linux kernel, PMP. My wife, math and psychotherapist, netbook and PMP. A daughter, a linguist, a large laptop with Windows Vista, and a lightweight netbook with Windows XP, and PMP.
Human needs are mobile and vary greatly from work, lifestyle and place of stay: for example, now there is a massive trend of replacing old ugly desktops like “iron box” on Nettop and a game console. Now that the niche of desktop computers is a little more than saturated, the development should go and take the path of greater flexibility, greater specialization and greater freedom of choice for the user. In full accordance with Toffler, by the way. The crisis only added an extra kick in this situation, which was already unsustainably balanced on the edge. The trends are logical, and it just had to happen.
In the struggle of open and closed scalable operating systems, the open ones will start winning very quickly (much faster than in 14 years). And here I would put on Google, the Linux kernel, and hardware compatible with the Linux kernel - and not on Apple. Apple will remain an expensive niche product with a great design.
We stop arguing - which is better, Windows or Linux. Because this argument will lose its meaning. We will not argue about the benefits of the platforms - someone will remain behind a large keyboard, someone with a small one, and someone will poke a finger at the virtual one, that's all the difference. The era of specialization and improvements in each niche will come: e-books on e-paper will be improved - so that it is even more pleasant to read them than paper books. Gaming consoles and nettops will be improved, computers will appear on the TV and home phones with Internet . Smartphones and communicators on different platforms will compete to better perform their main function within their budget niche. Intense competition allowed the competition for supply at increasingly lower prices.
And all these trends are pretty damn good.
And the whole business is in the initially correct architectural solution of the OS, which assumes easy scalability, including the separation of the core and the graphics subsystem.
This is exactly what the N900 review that appeared yesterday suggests. I don’t know if I put these thoughts right here in the OS - and not in the PDA, Smartphones or Netbooks. But I know for sure that it makes sense to discuss in essence exactly here, on Habré.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/67652/
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