Breaking with the past: Windows OS X?

The Windows NT kernel and architecture, which are at the heart of Windows XP and Windows Vista, are getting more bloated all the time. Packed with every conceivable feature, Windows is home to a huge numbers of different APIs and programming models, object formats and legacy shim layers.

Microsoft needs a reboot — a fresh Windows architecture that ditches the past, and looks toward the future. A clean, new architecture for Windows would be faster, safer, more stable and better for the future than the hodgepodge we have today.

That’s a point I made in a pair of SD Times “Zeichick’s Take” columns published in early 2006. You can read them on my blog, under “Break from the past.”

I was happy to see a similar perspective published in the New York Times yesterday, where Randall Stross says that “Windows Could Use A Breath of Fresh Air.” The San Jose State Univ. professor called the hypothetical next-generation operating system “Windows OS X,” hearkening back to Apple’s Mach-based Mac OS X 10.0 debut in 2001.

Should Microsoft do this? Definitely. Will it happen? Undoubtedly. Will it be soon? No way.