Het is dus waar. Gisteren hadden we er ook al een posting over: Win9x is niet het laatste Mikroschoft OS met de zwaar verouderde Win9x kernel (die bovenop 16-bits DOS draait, ooit ontwikkeld voor 8-bits computers en, op zijn beurt weer gebaseerd op het CP/M OSje voor 4-bits systemen...). M$ zegt nooit de waarheid:
Microsoft will produce at least one more rev of Windows 9x before it finally converges its operating systems, it has emerged this week. This new plan flatly contradicts what the company has been saying for over a year - far from rolling its desktop products into one basic OS at Windows 2000 stage, Microsoft may now be on the point of abandoning its convergence strategy.Microsoft has actually been talking about rolling it all into one product since the early stages of NT. For most of that time the company hasn't got any closer to a single core product that covers both business and consumer sectors, but more recently it has made it clear that it sees Windows 98 as being the last of the line. The next big product, Windows 2000 (aka NT 5.0) was intended to spearhead the push to move NT technology into the corporate market, supplanting 9x, and also to form the basis for a new consumer-oriented operating system.
But now it would appear that all of this has been at least postponed. Microsoft is planning a Windows 98 service pack for the middle of the year, and then after that a more substantial 9x update aimed at the consumer market. Considering the calendar and Microsoft's historical problems in getting new revs of its operating systems to market, Windows 99 isn't an option as a name, and it appears the company is currently referring to the product internally as Windows NT Consumer.
Zie dit artikel op The Register voor meer info.