Although speculations do exist pointing that Microsoft is in the "right direction" as far as the next releases of its proprietary operating system are concerned, the fact of the matter is that Windows 7 and Windows 8 will not diverge from the Windows path in the foreseeable future. Do not expect Windows Next or Windows Next Next to be a rewrite of Windows because, just as Windows 7 is intimately connected to Windows Vista down to the core, or kernel in this case, so will Windows 8 have its roots deep inside its predecessor. Nevertheless, there are additional candidates for the operating system to kill Windows.

Apple's Mac OS X and the open source Linux are the most prominent non-Windows operating systems. However, so far, both have only managed to coexist with Windows and failed to be a real threat to its dominance over the operating system market. Although many will applaud scenarios in which either Linux or Mac OS X would take the lion's share of the market, the fact is Windows is here to stay - and dominate - for years to come. At the same time, another candidate, one with actual chances of success can come from Microsoft itself. The Redmond company, via its Microsoft Research division, is indeed building non-Windows operating systems. One illustrative example is Singularity, which is already available for download.

"Singularity is a research project focused on the construction of dependable systems through innovation in the areas of systems, languages, and tools. We are building a research operating system prototype (called Singularity), extending programming languages, and developing new techniques and tools for specifying and verifying program behavior. Advances in languages, compilers, and tools open the possibility of significantly improving software. For example, Singularity uses type-safe languages and an abstract instruction set to enable what we call Software Isolated Processes (SIPs). SIPs provide the strong isolation guarantees of OS processes (isolated object space, separate GCs, separate runtimes) without the overhead of hardware-enforced protection domains," Microsoft reveals in Singularity's description.

And testers can already play around with Singularity, Midori (via Mary Jo Foley), also an operating system written from scratch in managed code, is being kept under wraps. The Windows operating system as it is today has almost reached the end of its evolution. Microsoft might be able to squeeze a Windows 7 and then a Windows 8 out of it, but well into the next decade a complete overhaul will have to take place, just to keep the pace with the hardware advances, especially when it comes down to the CPU. There is no telling at this point in time what exactly Midori is, beyond its obvious connection with Singularity, nor about the direction it is heading.

Sure enough, as a future operating system from Microsoft, Midori has the potential to go mainstream and replace what is currently available, especially if virtualization capabilities will offer a surrogate-Windows to make it play nice with legacy hardware and software. But another, more palpable danger for Windows is browsers and web-based platforms. Cloud operating systems accessible from any browser and device-independent, offering via Rich Internet Applications everything that Microsoft offers today have a real chance at killing Windows, especially in software as service scenarios. Microsoft is fighting such a possibility by bundling Windows and Windows Live together, but Software + Services might not be enough, just like it might happen with Midori as well.


Singularity: A research OS written in C#