Microsoft has recently released its newest operating system, Windows Vista. This has caused what seems like quite a ruckus in some places. The United States Department of Transportation has gone as far as banning its employees from upgrading to it or IE7 (on their work computers). The reasoning behind the mandate was quite simple: there's no reason to.

That move alone made me question my own move to Vista. I upgraded largely because I like playing with the latest and greatest, but other than that I really have no reason to, except for perhaps testing applications I develop on it. Vista is largely an eye candy upgrade for the casual user. We've been told that much has changed under the hood, and that's all well and good, but to a user, why should they pay hundreds of dollars for a new OS that has some shiny buttons?

I've used pretty much every OS in contention for users, from Solaris to Windows, to Linux (and many of the flavors in between), and I believe I've noticed a trend that we will begin to see emerge in the next decade.

Operating systems are getting to a point where there just isn't much left to do in terms of features and usability. I should correct myself, Windows is getting to that point - Linux and the others have a ways to go before they're done evolving. What I find interesting here is that the operating system is way ahead of everything else as we make our way to the cool-as-hell computers of the future we see in movies like Minority Report. I'm talking about the human-computer interface. Right now we're still using keyboards and mice with the occasional stylus or touch screen thrown in. Voice recognition is a cool novelty, but ultimately I don't think it will be much more than that - it's not only less practical, but it will always be slower than a keyboard.

Until our hardware catches up, the very cool innovations that will mandate purchasing a brand new OS will have to be put on hold. It is because of this lack of technology that I don't see there being a reason for users to upgrade past an operating system like Vista. I think that our technology has gotten to a point where it's nice that the OS takes advantage of the fact that nearly every computer has a graphics accelerator, but what's left after that? Can you even fathom anything in the near future?

I believe that Microsoft is going to have to change their business model. Instead of selling a brand new version of their OS every 3-5 years, they are going to be offering small incremental innovations to plug into the OS, replacing or adding features as they develop them. This is already largely the state of affairs in the open source world, with the exception that there are new releases of distributions frequently as they work their way to the point that I mentioned above.

Operating systems will be purchased piecemeal. You will buy the OS and from then on you will just upgrade features when you feel it is worth it - whether it be for that extra piece of eye candy or something that might increase your daily productivity. Nothing you don't want will be forced on you - there won't have to be any compromises. I, for one, really like a lot of Vista's new UI, but I can't stand the folder explorer (where the hell did my "up one directory" button go?!).

Vista's adoption looks to be one of the longest in the history of the Redmond company's OS, and I don't think people are going to be looting the store shelves when their next OS comes along in another few years. The system is going to have to change whether or not the suits want it to. This is a game that the users are in control of, and they are beginning to figure out that they don't have to upgrade just because the next version is out.