Beneath their skins, the operating systems are remarkably similar. Given the same hardware platforms, the same jobs to do and many of the same applications, it is no wonder they have converged. There is no job any of them can do that the others cannot, beyond the limitations set by marketing, rather than technical, considerations.
Such stability and commonality are a boon for users, who can switch between platforms and be productive with a minimum of fuss. But it is a poor environment for genuine innovation: when marketing is the primary differentiator, we should expect it to be the area that gets most attention. True technological advances are harder to justify.
Which wouldn't be so bad, were there no real problems left to fix on the desktop. Yet there are, and they need to be fixed. They are best described as the four 'tees' — usability, reliability, mobility and security.
Usability is the easiest, and hardest, thing to reinvent. It's easy, because it is the most human aspect of computing and, thus, most capable of absorbing good ideas from many places. It's hard, because it requires huge imagination and creativity to shift it away from the windowed desktop metaphor that is now so far past its prime.
Reliability means rethinking the cloud. It's becoming clear that the cloud will never be entirely reliable, for the simple reason that connectivity inside and out with the cloud is never entirely reliable. At the same time, the cloud is a great place to keep data: intelligent, invisible, inclusive mirroring of data and functions on client and in cloud gets the best of both worlds. That's an OS function.
Mobility continues to ask more questions than it answers. Data and applications do not want to be constrained to the desktop, but efforts to create seamless experiences for the whole range of displays — from phone to projector — have largely failed. That it is technically possible for the same code to run anywhere does not make it desirable: the next OS will have to morph from platform to platform.
That leaves security. The desktop OS is the place where most of us encounter and control our valuable data, yet it remains locked in a perplexing, complex and fallible set of conflicting requirements. The default is to get security wrong by making it hard. It, too, should be invisible, intelligent and inclusive.
All of the above need radical thought, which boils down to a simple idea: where things are not invisible, they need to be vastly more usable. The winner of the next OS war will be the design that gets this right. It remains an entirely open race: Windows, OS X and Ubuntu aren't even at the starting line.
Talkback
For me, we are still at the prehistoric era when it comes to computers. By this I mean that they were created not that long ago. 60 years ago, the PC didnt even exist yet and the laptop seemed like an impossible idea. Right now there is a lot of inertia, mainly because of an abusive market leader but also because we are still wondering what,when,how to develop software/hardware in an efficient and reliable way. There are a lot of challenges arising from computing and the internet, if you just look at big companies like Google dedicating tons of money/engineers on something as 'small' as a search engine, you get an idea of how far we are from the end of that transition to a mature internet/computing era.
Why is apple even in this lineup? at least the other two work on the same hardware, not much of a choice is they, as much as i would like to see open source lead the way its never going to happen as long as they will be to many open source OS's to choose from.
With windows you have basically one choice, with different versions. With Linux you have many, many choices. If you don't like one, go to another. If you can't find what you like, remaster, and make your own. Put in the apps you want, customize the desktop, and all other aspects to your specifications. This is something you can't do with windows, or MAC. I wouldn't count open source out yet. It is getting better everyday.
What I'm trying to say is with open source they is no one set standard for core architectural compliance across the board, of each different open source derivate OS available.
This makes finding programs available for other OS's extremely difficult to find/purchase for open source OS's, and this is the single biggest reason why the mass public won't take to it, from a developers point of view how the hell do you program your application for 15, 20, split/same OS's? when they all insist on having unique core differences.
yeah 10 years back open source OS's was bloody nightmare for even things like drivers etc let a lone anything else, so yeah they've come a long way since then, they just need to cross that last hurdle and agree upon a fundamental core type they can all use, as well as the rest of us.
Its all very well shouting off at ms but show me a real viable alternative for the masses on the market today? they just isn't one.
You try to chow to people that Ubuntu and Windows are egal, and that's simply not true. You say that with Ubuntu user get userfull applications, but You don't say that the count is about 30.000 free applications that can do all imaginable. Wih Windows You got nothing that OS.
Also Ubuntu is much more secure and relayable that any Widnows will ever be. Try to put Winodws on server and it will not stand to the end of the day. With Windows user can have the problems with a number of 1.000.000 viruses and malwares.
etc. etc..
There is a BIG difference between these OSes.