With Windows 7, Computing Goes Frugal (sort of)

Windows 7, now available as a stable trial version, is the first in the Windows dynasty to run at least as smoothly on hardware that ran its predecessor -- and that is no small shift | IslamOnline.net

Microsoft’s critics used to accuse the Windows company of forcing users to make expensive hardware upgrades with every new edition of the all-but-dominant operating system. And that was largely true. After all, Windows 98 could hardly run on the Windows 95 hardware, and the same was true of Windows Millennium (released in 2000) Windows XP (2001) and Windows Vista (early 2007).

[Thus the term "Wintel", carved out of the words Windows and Intel, to denote the perceived "alliance" between Microsoft and the microchip manufacturer in which each constantly upgraded its wares, leaving users with scarcely any choice but to buy the most recent stuff from the other company in order for their software and hardware to be compatible.]

Now Windows 7 appears to be a break with the family tradition.

Since its trial (beta) version was made available for all to download from Microsoft’s website, a near-consensus has formed that the Seventh (precisely, its beta) runs better than Vista on Vista machines.

To do this, Microsoft had to do some serious tweaks. The new Windows has a smaller “footprint” (that is, it uses less processor, hard disk and RAM resources to work), runs all or most of Vista-compatible programs, and is more user-friendly in terms of security warnings. On top of that, some improvements in the user-interface (particularly the task-bar) have been received favorably. The result has so far been more raves than rants.

The Vista Fix?

By offering these improvements, however, Microsoft is addressing some of the all-too-publicized shortcomings of Vista — including the nagging “user account control,” being a “resource hog,” and application incompatibility when upgrading from Windows XP.

Why Microsoft is offering a new edition of its Windows that can run even better than its predecessor on older hardware has intrigued many in the technology and media circles. David Pogue, the New York Times technology columnist, deems Windows 7 a Vista “fix”— an attempt from Microsoft to stem the tide of bad publicity that had dogged Vista since its introduction. That is probably evident in the rather two short years it took to announce the Vista successor, as opposed to the six years it took developing the XP successor, the Vista.

Another take is that Microsoft is just responding to the global financial crisis which made many in the
business and consumer sectors unwilling to invest in computer upgrades. The Economist views the Seventh as part of a trend in the technology sector in which companies are offering the same capacity for less money, instead of higher capacity for the same prices. Windows 7, which many believe is superior to its predecessor, will require no better hardware than that for Vista. And major PC  manufacturers, including HP and Dell, are also applying the same concept by cutting prices across the board.

Computers and the Efficiency Paradox

The Vista debacle, however, has shed light on a deeper paradox related to computing and productivity. We pay for computers and computing-related gadgets and software because they, potentially, make us more efficient. [It goes without saying that it is easier to do writing and mailing with a word processor and an email client than without.] But the understanding that on the whole computers bring about more efficiency has somewhat blinded us to the fact that we may actually be paying a lot of money for  excess computing that we hardly need or use.

Yet it is not easy to see this paradox. One reason is that, as technology commentator Randell Kennedy puts it, “what Intel giveth, Microsoft taketh away.” That is, surplus processing and hardware power are often sucked into bloated software applications that are only marginally better than earlier versions, and with outrageous demands on hardware.

And Vista is indeed a good example to illustrate this. To avoid confusing customers as to whether the PCs on the market were prepared to run Vista, Microsoft started slapping the “Vista-ready” stickers on almost every new machine. As it turned out, many of these computers were not quite ready. And Microsoft has now to defend itself in a court of law against the charge that it deceived customers by allowing PC manufacturers to use the readiness stickers too liberally.

Enticed by the Vista advertising campaign, “The Wow Starts Now,” customers who bought Vista-mounted machines were confronted instead with a sluggish operating system that was more a source of woe than “wow”.

So machines with hardware specifications that could beat the system that ran a space launch in NASA’s Apollo program (1963-1972) could not sufficiently operate a general-purpose, end-user PC.

And here lies the paradox. In the search for computer-enhanced efficiency, it has become almost the default attitude to ignore the classic economic fact that upgrades produce diminishing returns. As we seek to boost our efficiency by acquiring more “advanced” hardware and software, we end up being, all in all, less efficient.

But if the “law” of diminishing returns applies everywhere, why should one assign the paradox only to
computing-produced efficiency? Essentially because of two factors. One is that diminishing returns are often associated with natural resources (the crop yield of a plot of land improves as more fertilizers are used — but up to a point, past which the yield will not increase no matter how much fertilizers are put in).

Computing-produced efficiency is different. Crucially, in computing we do not have to accept  diminishing returns. While “upgrading” from Office XP to Office 2003 to Office 2007 entailed increasing expenses, there was hardly a corresponding gain in our efficiency from such upgrades. And we did not have to make those upgrades to begin with.

In theory, that is. Which brings us to the second feature of diminishing returns in computing-enhanced efficiency: it is controlled by parties for whom efficiency is not necessarily the goal, namely the technology companies. Conscious of the fact that it may make more sense for users, efficiency-wise, to shun the That new upgrades than to embrace them, technology companies resort to artificial measures to maintain the demand for their products, such as discontinuing technical support, or introducing completely new standards. In a 2006 interview, computer scientist Sawami Monohar, one of the Simputer inventors, dubbed this “forced upgrade cycles.”

What Users Want

That makes Windows 7 all the more a noteworthy development. It hints at a change in strategy at the world’s largest software company. Instead of making the Seventh another hardware nightmare,  Microsoft is electing to offer the more reasonable alternative: an operating system that supports backward compatibility, in terms of both software and hardware.

But then some may argue that this time around Microsoft did not have a choice. For one thing, despite being distributed in hundreds of millions of PCs, Vista did not sell well compared with its  predecessors. And Microsoft came under pressure from PC manufacturers to address its defects.

On the other hand, more and more technology companies are emerging with products that highlight the
efficiency paradox in those of established companies. SalesForce.com and Google Docs, offer what the Economist calls ” good-enough computing.” Compared with the products they are intended to compete with from Microsoft and Oracle, they seem to lack many features. But judged by the features that  customers use, these new Web-hosted services do the job well enough.

And in fact, Microsoft (as well as Intel) is also responding to the efficiency paradox on another front. As Intel offered the energy-efficient, medium-performance Atom line of computer processors, many computer manufacturers asked Microsoft to extend the shelf life of Windows XP to run the new line of notebook computers known as “netbooks”. Netbooks are the machines, often with small displays and modest performance, aimed at carrying out Web-based tasks on the go. Surprisingly to some, netbooks (particularly from non-US manufacturers such as Acer and Asus) have outsold regular laptops in the second half of 2008.

This all bodes well for the rest of us. Technology companies are readjusting their philosophies and products to be more aligned with what users really want. Still, the question remains: is this an enduring trend or a temporary adjustment to a global financial pinch? Most likely it is not the latter.