The Microsoft Windows operating system has become unwieldy and is choking on the amount of code that needs to be maintained. Moreover, its days are numbered unless the OS becomes more modular. Those are some of the conclusions of a widely reported talk by Gartner analysts Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald at this week's Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Las Vegas. The title of their talk was clear enough: “Windows Is Collapsing: How What Comes Next Will Improve.”

What comes next after Windows Vista is code-named "Windows 7," an OS currently under development. Windows 7 was rumored -- by Microsoft's Chairman Bill Gates himself -- to appear as early as next year. However, Gates may have meant an initial test version of Windows 7, rather than the release-to-manufacturing version.

One of Microsoft's problems with Windows in general, according to Silver and MacDonald, is that Redmond has to maintain backward compatibility with applications over a 20-years period. The analysts suggested a way out for Microsoft. Use virtualization via compatibility modules to ensure backward compatibility, rather than continuing to integrate code into newer and newer versions of Windows.

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Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows OS, Article, Virtualization