David Worthington: At the risk of undercutting one of its core product lines, Microsoft is carefully conceptualizing a way to move millions of users away from the existing Windows codebase and onto Midori, a legacy-free operating system that it is currently incubating in its skunk works.
SD Times has viewed internal Microsoft documents that reveal the company’s preference of an orderly replacement strategy rather than breaking sharply with its past.
The company is acutely aware that Windows is installed on the majority of the world’s computers and has a broad legacy of applications and devices—one that carries with it a lot of value.
But heritage comes at a price: Evolving Windows to meet new opportunities is a costly proposition. “Legacy support is a huge anchor on Windows,” remarked Larry O’Brien, an independent analyst and consultant who writes the Windows & .NET Watch column for SD Times.
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