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Operating-System Trends


It's Gotta Be Multiplatform

Changes in information systems have driven corporate users to clamor for technical solutions to their problems. When there's less money and fewer people to throw at problems, what's left but technology? One of the technical solutions that corporate users are now asking operating-system developers to provide is the multiplatform operating system.

Operating-system developers can no longer afford to support just one hardware platform. A successful sale of personal computers to a large installation represents big revenues to the operating-system developertoo big to be tied to the fate of any one hardware platform.

Network-Dependent Applications

As you migrate from a simple PC on a desktop running only personal productivity applications to enterprise-wide systems, each level adds user benefits. From a technology viewpoint, the transitions between these levels can be achieved through incremental additions. But from the corporate customer's perspective, each level adds other issues that a mission-critical system must address.

For an application in a networked environment to be robust, all the network's resources must be managed. It becomes a more difficult and costly implementation process. For advanced operating systems, the key question that network-dependent applications raise is, How much of that network management responsibility should the operating system assume? The operating system forms the foundation of the networked environment, and the system management functions (e.g., configuration, installation, and administration) become applications that lie on top of the operating system. But the operating system must be tailored to support network-dependent applications.

Information systems professionals are accustomed to having the access and controls that are provided by large host environments. What they are looking for is a stable operating system on the server and a stable, multifunctional operating system on the client. They want applications built on top of an operating system so that they can manage the networked resources easily.

For example, Colleary points to OS/2's Crash Protection feature, which protects the networked system from massive failure in response to an application crashing on a client. If an application running on a client pulls down your entire system, "you're not talking about a person being unable to work, you're talking about the entire organization or department not being able to function," Colleary says.

The SDK Comes First

Intel's Windows NT goes to the beta-test stage this fall, but the Software Development Kit is shipping before that because Microsoft is trying to make it possible for developers to create 32-bit applications early. That approach is different from the old practice of shipping a new operating system and its development kit simultaneously. With the current approach, developers will have been able to test the API and create solid applications for the new operating system much sooner.

IBM is also paying attention to the need for early information in support of a new operating system. For OS/2 2.0, it conducted an early development program that included 30,000 sites worldwide. Each site gained experience with the operating system and fed back its requirements to IBM for transition into OS/2 code.

Future Directions

Virtually all the operating-system developers are pursuing new technologies, such as support for multimedia applications. Delivery of some of these capabilities will require changes in hardware platforms or in customers' information systems. Some of the emerging technologies will be resourceintensive, perhaps requiring changes in the operating system to efficiently handle new tasks simultaneously.

If the convergence of the worlds of computing, telecommunications, and TV occurs as expected, the huge sales volumes of the consumer markets will become a dominating influence in the directions taken in operating-system development. But until the buying power of the consumer has been tapped, the needs of the corporate customer will set the course for operating-system evolution.


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