Handicapping the Windows 7 alternatives

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks on the desktop OS front. Microsoft’s big reveal regarding Windows 7 and its Vista heritage sent many of my blogospheric contemporaries scrambling to justify their myriad off-base predictions. Having anticipated this outcome weeks ago, I was free to ponder an even more radical set of possibilities — specifically, which of the current crop of Unix-based OS is best positioned to knock off Windows 7 come late 2009.

Note the timeframe qualifier above. I’m not interested in what’s available today. Rather, I’m looking 12 to 18 months out in an effort to divine what kind of competitive landscape Windows 7 will be born into. As Microsoft churns away at its typical, glacial development pace, emerging challengers, such as Ubuntu and OpenSolaris, continue to evolve. How far they get during those intervening months will determine what percentage of those coveted XP fence-sitters finally choose to abandon Windows altogether.

Ubuntu: Once the poster child for Windows-to-Linux defectors, Ubuntu has lost some of its coolness factor. Consecutive lackluster releases, plus a “pass the buck” mentality toward lingering kernel issues, have tarnished Canonical’s once unassailable reputation. Add to this Mr. Shuttleworth’s obsession with the emerging ultra-low-cost PC segment and you have a recipe for disaster.

There’s still time for the company to come to its senses — to take responsibility for more than just the packaging of its distro. With two or three major releases between now and Windows 7’s earliest, most optimistic delivery target, Canonical has an opportunity to shore up its position as desktop Linux torch bearer by dumping Gnome, embracing KDE 4.x, and doing whatever it takes to improve reliability across a greater range of hardware configurations. Do that, and it might have a shot at securing some of the more open-minded XP defectors.

OpenSolaris: A true dark horse candidate, OpenSolaris has the pedigree to be a real challenger to Windows, at least in the enterprise. Sporting a clean, battle-hardened kernel architecture, OpenSolaris is what Linux wants to be when it grows up: mature, robust, and confident. Unfortunately, all of the FOSS folks are too busy playing with their GNU tinker toy to be bothered with supporting a platform that may or may not be compatible with their “free as in air” ideology.

And this means that OpenSolaris remains a few revisions behind the times, as evidenced by the down-level iterations of Gnome and related utilities in the 2008.5 release. Still, if Sun ever decides to get serious about OpenSolaris, it could make a run at the title.

The Solaris-derived foundation is solid. What it needs is expanded device support and a concerted effort to port the best of FOSS to its currently anemic repositories. As Microsoft continues tripping over its own consumer/media aspirations with each new Windows release, the time may soon be ripe for the reemergence of a more “responsible” solutions from the Unix standard bearer.

Mac OS X (or XI): Lately, it seems as if Apple can do no wrong. The iPhone is a hit, its laptops are trendsetters, and OS X is held up as the perfect marriage of form and function.

Yet, despite all this success, the company continues to cut itself off at the knees by refusing to license OS X outside of its own hardware. I’m convinced this is partly out of fear; Apple knows that if/when it releases OS X to the masses, it’ll have to support it on the same hodge-podge hardware environment that makes Microsoft look so bad. And tarnishing the image of the revered OS X is not a possibility Apple wants to entertain.

Which is too bad because, given enough hardware support, a platform-agnostic OS X could put a major dent in Microsoft’s installed base over the next year and a half. However, such a move requires vision, not to mention a modicum of courage — both of which seem to be in short supply over at 1 Infinite Loop.

Note that I’m not listing Windows XP here since I believe that, post-2009, hanging on to this rapidly aging platform makes little sense. If you’re going to reject Microsoft’s upgrade path, then do yourself a favor and go all the way. Try one of these emerging competitors. Chances are, given another 12 to 18 months of development, more than one of them will begin to rival Windows XP as the best alternative to Windows 7 — a.k.a. Vista Reloaded.