Interesting threads on an internal Microsoft alias today. Employees are questioning why we (Microsoft employees) can't just own up to the truth and stop spinning when we have bad news to report.
Yeah, we're talking about Charles Miller's post about the death of WinFS where he took Microsoft to task.
It's not human nature to admit that you tried to do something and failed at it.
And, it's very hard to share where failure's lessons will be applied in the future because that'd be tipping your hand to your competitors about what you're doing in the future.
What happened to WinFS?
The Web killed it. *
The Web is how people use computers now and will in the future. Steve Gillmor loves to say Office is dead. Well, that has yet to be seen (whether Office dies or not is in that team's hands) but WinFS was a technology that'd have a hard time getting going because it's anti Web. It'll be interesting to see if this stuff comes back in a Web way. Ray Ozzie to the rescue!
* Update: this is my theory. I don't really know why it was killed but when teams and companies don't come clean and give us some transparency into why things get done then people will make stuff up. And, it is interesting timing that this came a week after Bill Gates announced he was going to be less involved in Microsoft and went on summer vacation.
Update 2: Shishir Mehrotra of the WinFS team wrote me and other bloggers who are talking about this internally and said my theory is wrong and that WinFS hasn't died at all, but is actually being rolled into SQL Server and a new project that's under development.
PS. Karim, that was brilliant.
Karim, please warn me when you write something so good and funny. I almost spit Diet Coke all over my monitor.
>This “free world where advertisers foot the bill” didn’t work in 1998 and it isn’t going to work in 2008.
Really? Google came out of that period. If that’s “not working” then I wanna “not work” too!
Karim, please warn me when you write something so good and funny. I almost spit Diet Coke all over my monitor.
>This “free world where advertisers foot the bill” didn’t work in 1998 and it isn’t going to work in 2008.
Really? Google came out of that period. If that’s “not working” then I wanna “not work” too!
Personally, and I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t want various web silos to be the sole owners of my personal data. Maybe there are some photos I’d rather not have up on Flickr, or my blog or whatever. Maybe I’d rather not have Google as the sole custodian of my spreadsheets and documents.
Some of the arguments here are utterly facetious. I don’t want Google while I’m not connected because in that situation being able to search web pages seems pretty redundant. But I sure want to still be able to read and write documents, email (even if I can’t send it) read feeds I downloaded while I was online, play games, listen to music etc. while I’m disconnected.
My Xbox 360 works just fine disconnected. Sure, I don’t get the value-added stuff that’s coming from Live, but you can bet there’d be a hideous outcry if being online was a requirement. People are, mark my words, not going to like the day they wake up and find their computers are little more than dumb terminals to ad infested/supported web apps.
Anyways, personally, I wanted WinFS to be a nice object-orientated relational data model that I could dump data into in fantastic structured ways and they query later. For developers it would be gold dust. Imagine a world in which every program logically connects together every single bit of data in a consistent way. Your instant messenger contacts are connected to your e-mail to your chat logs to the music they’ve sent you, to the documents you’ve shared with them. That’s really great compelling stuff.
I get your Web 2.0 enthusiasm, but you live in rarefied air. Most of the world doesn’t know what RSS/Web 2.0 is, and they care less. Whilst connectivity is important, the really interesting applications in the future are the ones which leverage the client AND the network. I mean, your big HD craze of late is just incompatible with the “web” alone. It’s relying on client tech like BitTorrent to get it done.
The future is peer-to-peer, I think, maybe backed up by central services. Think of a vision like WinFS, but one that connects with other people you know. So your queries will touch stuff they have too. Maybe. I don’t know. I think the future is in interconnectivity between things out there in the cloud, people out there, and things I have. I want my phone to sync contacts properly with my computer. I want my photos and text messages from my phone to come up to my computer and be associated with the contacts who sent them. I want to not have totally seperate contact lists in Outlook / Windows Live / MySpace / whatever. I want to have stuff that’s mine and stuff that’s out there seamlessly. So there’s a role for the web, there’s a role for my own data to be collected and organised.
The value is in the plurality of the experience. It’s going to suck if we have to use Google everything to get any value out of it. The only way to make best use of data is if everyone buys into a single way of describing and organising data. I mean, one of my pet peeves at the moment is José González. If I want to find every song on my computer right now that has him in, I have the first problem that not every song with him in is labelled as such, and the second that some of them miss the accents, or spell his surname with an s. If instead they referenced some standard way of representing him as an artist, that’d be better. I don’t see how Google is going to go about solving that problem! Are they going to give me a Google music store with non-broken metadata that I can search across? What about the music I’ve already bought?
With WinFS, this kinda music data would be broken out of the silos it’s in currently, then I could use some general-purpose querying tool to go in and fix up that data. It gives the user back ownership of these things. It would mean different programs could all seperately agree on some of these basic concepts, and then start to do some sensible things with them.
WinFS is dead because it was over-ambitious, and they tried to do too much at once. So Microsoft have cut their losses and reassigned the bits that could be salvaged into other other products. It was always a hard proposition. It’s hard because it’s worth doing. But oh well.
Personally, and I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t want various web silos to be the sole owners of my personal data. Maybe there are some photos I’d rather not have up on Flickr, or my blog or whatever. Maybe I’d rather not have Google as the sole custodian of my spreadsheets and documents.
Some of the arguments here are utterly facetious. I don’t want Google while I’m not connected because in that situation being able to search web pages seems pretty redundant. But I sure want to still be able to read and write documents, email (even if I can’t send it) read feeds I downloaded while I was online, play games, listen to music etc. while I’m disconnected.
My Xbox 360 works just fine disconnected. Sure, I don’t get the value-added stuff that’s coming from Live, but you can bet there’d be a hideous outcry if being online was a requirement. People are, mark my words, not going to like the day they wake up and find their computers are little more than dumb terminals to ad infested/supported web apps.
Anyways, personally, I wanted WinFS to be a nice object-orientated relational data model that I could dump data into in fantastic structured ways and they query later. For developers it would be gold dust. Imagine a world in which every program logically connects together every single bit of data in a consistent way. Your instant messenger contacts are connected to your e-mail to your chat logs to the music they’ve sent you, to the documents you’ve shared with them. That’s really great compelling stuff.
I get your Web 2.0 enthusiasm, but you live in rarefied air. Most of the world doesn’t know what RSS/Web 2.0 is, and they care less. Whilst connectivity is important, the really interesting applications in the future are the ones which leverage the client AND the network. I mean, your big HD craze of late is just incompatible with the “web” alone. It’s relying on client tech like BitTorrent to get it done.
The future is peer-to-peer, I think, maybe backed up by central services. Think of a vision like WinFS, but one that connects with other people you know. So your queries will touch stuff they have too. Maybe. I don’t know. I think the future is in interconnectivity between things out there in the cloud, people out there, and things I have. I want my phone to sync contacts properly with my computer. I want my photos and text messages from my phone to come up to my computer and be associated with the contacts who sent them. I want to not have totally seperate contact lists in Outlook / Windows Live / MySpace / whatever. I want to have stuff that’s mine and stuff that’s out there seamlessly. So there’s a role for the web, there’s a role for my own data to be collected and organised.
The value is in the plurality of the experience. It’s going to suck if we have to use Google everything to get any value out of it. The only way to make best use of data is if everyone buys into a single way of describing and organising data. I mean, one of my pet peeves at the moment is José González. If I want to find every song on my computer right now that has him in, I have the first problem that not every song with him in is labelled as such, and the second that some of them miss the accents, or spell his surname with an s. If instead they referenced some standard way of representing him as an artist, that’d be better. I don’t see how Google is going to go about solving that problem! Are they going to give me a Google music store with non-broken metadata that I can search across? What about the music I’ve already bought?
With WinFS, this kinda music data would be broken out of the silos it’s in currently, then I could use some general-purpose querying tool to go in and fix up that data. It gives the user back ownership of these things. It would mean different programs could all seperately agree on some of these basic concepts, and then start to do some sensible things with them.
WinFS is dead because it was over-ambitious, and they tried to do too much at once. So Microsoft have cut their losses and reassigned the bits that could be salvaged into other other products. It was always a hard proposition. It’s hard because it’s worth doing. But oh well.
[...] Even Robert Scoble, who usually has the inside scoop on everything newsworthy happening insde the software giant had a hard time making heads or tails of the situation. Interesting threads on an internal Microsoft alias today. Employees are questioning why we (Microsoft employees) can’t just own up to the truth and stop spinning when we have bad news to report….What happened to WinFS? The Web killed it…Update 2: Shishir Mehrotra of the WinFS team wrote me and other bloggers who are talking about this internally and said my theory is wrong and that WinFS hasn’t died at all, but is actually being rolled into SQL Server and a new project that’s under development. [...]
Vista odds and ends
(Jim Thompson is blogsitting TechBlog while Dwight Silverman takes a 2-week unplugged vacation. Dwight will resume his usual TechBlog duties on July 1.) Here’s a summary of recent news from the world of Windows Vista: Ed Bott notes that a…
Digg 3.0 launching…
(Jim Thompson is blogsitting TechBlog while Dwight Silverman takes a 2-week unplugged vacation. Dwight will resume his usual TechBlog duties on July 1.) As TechCrunch reported last week, a new version of Digg, 3.0, is due to launch today. Digg……
Scoble’s right, and I’m glad to see him sticking to it.
Our work stuff is all on servers, our home stuff is all online. I don’t need a database to run Warcraft, and I don’t need one to organize photos on flickr. People are writing stuff online, not in Word, and Google can find it.
Until someone does real image search (here’s a picture of my dog, find all the other pictures with my dog in it) we’re not going to get much better locally. What would the database have done that tagging can’t do? That folders can’t do? That date sorting can’t do?
I don’t think Picasa can be significantly improved.
I don’t think Itunes can be significantly improved.
Oh, eventually, but not in the near future, and not with some database built into an OS.
The real issue is where is MS going to improve Windows? What exactly can they do to challenge the Internet as a platform? And how can they have so many more developers and so much more money than Apple and just be treading water?
1. They’re duplicating Unix (Least Privileged Mode) instead of adopting and subverting. Dumb.
2. They’re trying to make IE the predominant platform and losing. Dumb.
3. They obsess over backwards compatibility, even in the consumer version of Vista. Dumb.
I mean, what are these people doing?:
http://research.microsoft.com/os/singularity/
Just plan a path, use virtual technology like Apple for compatibility, and move on with life. MS could have created an entirely new OS in the time it’s taken Vista to not come out. If you’re going to have 9 versions of Windows, quit trying to make them identical underneath. Plenty of companies use Linux and Windows side by side, I’m sure completely different versions of Vista home and business could co-exist.
Scoble’s right, and I’m glad to see him sticking to it.
Our work stuff is all on servers, our home stuff is all online. I don’t need a database to run Warcraft, and I don’t need one to organize photos on flickr. People are writing stuff online, not in Word, and Google can find it.
Until someone does real image search (here’s a picture of my dog, find all the other pictures with my dog in it) we’re not going to get much better locally. What would the database have done that tagging can’t do? That folders can’t do? That date sorting can’t do?
I don’t think Picasa can be significantly improved.
I don’t think Itunes can be significantly improved.
Oh, eventually, but not in the near future, and not with some database built into an OS.
The real issue is where is MS going to improve Windows? What exactly can they do to challenge the Internet as a platform? And how can they have so many more developers and so much more money than Apple and just be treading water?
1. They’re duplicating Unix (Least Privileged Mode) instead of adopting and subverting. Dumb.
2. They’re trying to make IE the predominant platform and losing. Dumb.
3. They obsess over backwards compatibility, even in the consumer version of Vista. Dumb.
I mean, what are these people doing?:
http://research.microsoft.com/os/singularity/
Just plan a path, use virtual technology like Apple for compatibility, and move on with life. MS could have created an entirely new OS in the time it’s taken Vista to not come out. If you’re going to have 9 versions of Windows, quit trying to make them identical underneath. Plenty of companies use Linux and Windows side by side, I’m sure completely different versions of Vista home and business could co-exist.
I think a more accurate comment would be:
“Microsoft’s incompetence killed WinFS. The Web renders it’s death inconsequential”.
I think a more accurate comment would be:
“Microsoft’s incompetence killed WinFS. The Web renders it’s death inconsequential”.
solomonrx,
well, as many people have said, the same winfs database technology that can be used on the desktop can be used on web servers; and it seems microsoft is continuing to develop this path as it is incorporating the winfs technology into server products. my point was there is no reason to divorce it from local storage technology and leave the desktop deprived of this; the implementation of a file store on a local machine isn’t the problem delaying WinFS its apparently both implementing network service and creating an intuitive end-user interface for accessing the store.
Whether or not more and more files are on the web, all files will not be on the web; and the amount will differ per user. An home user might have more on the web than a developer, a photographer, a designer, a writer, etc. But most people have some sort of job, or some sort of project they’re working on. And like I said, people don’t want to be forced to connect to the Internet to do anything.
Even so I still don’t agree that as of now people are no longer putting everything online. You really really believe people are no longer using word processors?
A WinFS data store is a great improvement even though, just like Avalon it may not seem like much to an end user who already feels like he can do everything he needs. But development of rich and adaptable user interfaces and controls is leagues easier and things render much smoother with Avalon. We should expect better applications as a result, but users won’t really see something in-your-face that on technical terms couldnt have been done in XP. Users don’t ‘need’ WinFS but it is an improvement. It does more than what tagging and indexing alone can do; it makes the metadata for files self-described, so you don’t need to have to create a DLL or dowload a programed filter to access the data associated with a file–it also makes the line between file content and header info unimportant. This is a great improvement and there are numerous ways within my personal projects that this would make the OS a bit more helpful.
It would also make it helpful for others who also will continue to work on projects more complex than a PTA flier, letter to the editor, or blog entry—but even if everything is done at work through servers, those servers could use a WinFS file store, ande even if at home done through the web they web servers could use a WinFS file store.
And this hasn’t been given up on… as you see Microsoft wants to use WinFS technology in server applications. The implementation of WinFS in servers had been cited as one of the reasons for its delays. So it isn’t the web, in that case, that has caused its ‘death’. The second reason cited has been problems implementing a good user interface for home users. This will probably mature and there will be no issue adding it later.
Whether people will care when its finally in the OS, as Scoble puts it, maybe isn’t the most relevant thing, and it certainly doesn’t mean WinFS is ‘dead’ or that the web killed WinFS. WinFS was always less important than observers made it out to be–people are fine with how they access their files now. It still is important, but in the way Avalon, Indigo, etc. are important; in a less in-your-face way in that they revolutionize the core OS functions–the improvements they make to the end-user experience are substantial but subtle and users should just expect to see a better product. People for some reason seem to expect every major OS release to look completely different from the one before it. Windows will look the same, just better.— even though one can see a double standard when talking about Apple–because even when they implement very minor things (that Microsoft may implement also), everything is seen as revolutionary whether it is or not.
But anyway, this is why people have reacted the way they did to Scoble’s idea. Not everything is an issue of web vs desktop; and I don’t believe this is.
solomonrx,
well, as many people have said, the same winfs database technology that can be used on the desktop can be used on web servers; and it seems microsoft is continuing to develop this path as it is incorporating the winfs technology into server products. my point was there is no reason to divorce it from local storage technology and leave the desktop deprived of this; the implementation of a file store on a local machine isn’t the problem delaying WinFS its apparently both implementing network service and creating an intuitive end-user interface for accessing the store.
Whether or not more and more files are on the web, all files will not be on the web; and the amount will differ per user. An home user might have more on the web than a developer, a photographer, a designer, a writer, etc. But most people have some sort of job, or some sort of project they’re working on. And like I said, people don’t want to be forced to connect to the Internet to do anything.
Even so I still don’t agree that as of now people are no longer putting everything online. You really really believe people are no longer using word processors?
A WinFS data store is a great improvement even though, just like Avalon it may not seem like much to an end user who already feels like he can do everything he needs. But development of rich and adaptable user interfaces and controls is leagues easier and things render much smoother with Avalon. We should expect better applications as a result, but users won’t really see something in-your-face that on technical terms couldnt have been done in XP. Users don’t ‘need’ WinFS but it is an improvement. It does more than what tagging and indexing alone can do; it makes the metadata for files self-described, so you don’t need to have to create a DLL or dowload a programed filter to access the data associated with a file–it also makes the line between file content and header info unimportant. This is a great improvement and there are numerous ways within my personal projects that this would make the OS a bit more helpful.
It would also make it helpful for others who also will continue to work on projects more complex than a PTA flier, letter to the editor, or blog entry—but even if everything is done at work through servers, those servers could use a WinFS file store, ande even if at home done through the web they web servers could use a WinFS file store.
And this hasn’t been given up on… as you see Microsoft wants to use WinFS technology in server applications. The implementation of WinFS in servers had been cited as one of the reasons for its delays. So it isn’t the web, in that case, that has caused its ‘death’. The second reason cited has been problems implementing a good user interface for home users. This will probably mature and there will be no issue adding it later.
Whether people will care when its finally in the OS, as Scoble puts it, maybe isn’t the most relevant thing, and it certainly doesn’t mean WinFS is ‘dead’ or that the web killed WinFS. WinFS was always less important than observers made it out to be–people are fine with how they access their files now. It still is important, but in the way Avalon, Indigo, etc. are important; in a less in-your-face way in that they revolutionize the core OS functions–the improvements they make to the end-user experience are substantial but subtle and users should just expect to see a better product. People for some reason seem to expect every major OS release to look completely different from the one before it. Windows will look the same, just better.— even though one can see a double standard when talking about Apple–because even when they implement very minor things (that Microsoft may implement also), everything is seen as revolutionary whether it is or not.
But anyway, this is why people have reacted the way they did to Scoble’s idea. Not everything is an issue of web vs desktop; and I don’t believe this is.
What Does the Death of WinFS Mean?
First of all, on the WinFS blog there is an update to the update on WINFS’s demise.
You may have noticed that storage has become a commodity over the past decade or so and that we’re all creating more and more data these days, taking photos…
Just a guess. But I doubt the web was the primary issue. Most likely, the needed work was not getting done rapidly enough. Plus the case for developing a relational file system may not be that strong. You can always make SQL Sever Express a standard part of the operating system and develop the tools to make it easy to use for an object relational mapping. That should basically accomplish the same thing without requiring as much new work. It also may take more steps than can be done for Vista. But the Linq project may still make a significant start.
Just a guess. But I doubt the web was the primary issue. Most likely, the needed work was not getting done rapidly enough. Plus the case for developing a relational file system may not be that strong. You can always make SQL Sever Express a standard part of the operating system and develop the tools to make it easy to use for an object relational mapping. That should basically accomplish the same thing without requiring as much new work. It also may take more steps than can be done for Vista. But the Linq project may still make a significant start.
You know what? If the Web can kill WinFS just because it’s not a web service, the Web can kill Windows and it can kill Microsoft. Will it? No.
Scoble, please investigate why WinFS was abandoned. Please. I can’t believe even you don’t know the truth.
And its use in SQL and ADO.NET is NOT WinFS.
You know what? If the Web can kill WinFS just because it’s not a web service, the Web can kill Windows and it can kill Microsoft. Will it? No.
Scoble, please investigate why WinFS was abandoned. Please. I can’t believe even you don’t know the truth.
And its use in SQL and ADO.NET is NOT WinFS.
Having a superficial understanding of what WinFs was going to be.. and to me that meant some meta-data layer on top of NTFS, i have to wonder what all the fuss is about that it’s being dropped or whatnot.
I mean how many people fill out the Metadata options we have now for all the files we can make. I have never once entered document information for Office docs. I simply dont have time. Nor am I going to OCDesquely meta-label every media file I have.
So being the lazy content-creator that I am, what am I missing by WinFs not coming to life?
None of the people bitching here have stated just what the negative impact to them is going to be. They just oppurtunitistically use this to get out one more anti-MS complaint. you people are tiring.
Having a superficial understanding of what WinFs was going to be.. and to me that meant some meta-data layer on top of NTFS, i have to wonder what all the fuss is about that it’s being dropped or whatnot.
I mean how many people fill out the Metadata options we have now for all the files we can make. I have never once entered document information for Office docs. I simply dont have time. Nor am I going to OCDesquely meta-label every media file I have.
So being the lazy content-creator that I am, what am I missing by WinFs not coming to life?
None of the people bitching here have stated just what the negative impact to them is going to be. They just oppurtunitistically use this to get out one more anti-MS complaint. you people are tiring.
MS catches flack for their announcement that WinFS as a standalone product is dropped
I think many of the reactions to today’s announcement from Microsoft that they are scrapping WinFS as a separate product is a good evidence of the challenges and risks big business has to deal with in the blogging era I talked about earlier.
The …
“Well, ReiserFS is better than NFTS anyday ” Its true
“Well, ReiserFS is better than NFTS anyday ” Its true
“None of the people bitching here have stated just what the negative impact to them is going to be.”
James,
The added feature of being able to do a “Search” and actually find what we are looking for within a document. We have been waiting for WinFS to help solve this problem, and I’ve looked at some alternative solutions a small bit. When Microsoft said that they would include WinFS for Windows Longhorn, I almost signed up for Software Assurance in 2002 when they wanted me to. For now, it’s back to the drawing board looking at third-party applications.
That’s one example of a real world letdown from Microsoft’s lack of implementing WinFS.
“None of the people bitching here have stated just what the negative impact to them is going to be.”
James,
The added feature of being able to do a “Search” and actually find what we are looking for within a document. We have been waiting for WinFS to help solve this problem, and I’ve looked at some alternative solutions a small bit. When Microsoft said that they would include WinFS for Windows Longhorn, I almost signed up for Software Assurance in 2002 when they wanted me to. For now, it’s back to the drawing board looking at third-party applications.
That’s one example of a real world letdown from Microsoft’s lack of implementing WinFS.
Let’s just roll this back a bit to some more interesting debate like “users don’t use files anymore they use websites”
That’s partly the problem – security – there is none left. Website are for oozing out opinions that aren’t worth the enough to be put into a file stored on a personal drive; unless you’re a researcher by trade there isn’t much need for putting anything into a documentative format.
Such flame posts as 60% of those above don’t add anything to the debate. They simply inflate the value of opinions.
Around the age of 25, a person today, must think of re-investing in personal education which will grow them beyond mere opinions read here and there.
For all the “paperless” technologies we’re trying to invent as a society, books are still the #1 source of educative and documentative forms of scholarly knowledge.
It’s very very clear by most of the posts here, which of you have classical educations in datastructures and computational theory, since 80% of the data posted contains no information.
[Recommended Reading: Practical File System Design: With The Be File System by Dominic Giampaolo ISBN:1-55860-497-9]
As one of my database design projects in college, I developed a fully functional database using only txt files stored on a FAT12 Bootable Partition which booted directly into the db management environment. It wasn’t complex at all since it was mostly batch files that poled for input at the prompt and did a variety of comps, pulls, pushes, and appends +++. I scored 100 on that project because the idea was so unconventional to Prof, but followed perfectly all of the guidelines established in our database design textbook, I simply applied an alternate approach to how we view a database environment should be. We’d all become too accustomed to ‘infrastuctures of our generation’ lol.
Well, WinFS? Never noticed to begin with… I’ve been busy engineering custom solutions to real industry problems for the past 10 years without ever noticing that Microsoft’s new technologies were going to affect what I did, and still do today.
Boohoo, no WinFS. My real concern is with Tech Companies WoWing the kiddies into believing that “Personal Computers” are not important or relavent anymore because “the web” does it better. Hmm, well my private information and documents are oddly enough… MINE, and not stored on an Internet connected PC.
Ciao.
Let’s just roll this back a bit to some more interesting debate like “users don’t use files anymore they use websites”
That’s partly the problem – security – there is none left. Website are for oozing out opinions that aren’t worth the enough to be put into a file stored on a personal drive; unless you’re a researcher by trade there isn’t much need for putting anything into a documentative format.
Such flame posts as 60% of those above don’t add anything to the debate. They simply inflate the value of opinions.
Around the age of 25, a person today, must think of re-investing in personal education which will grow them beyond mere opinions read here and there.
For all the “paperless” technologies we’re trying to invent as a society, books are still the #1 source of educative and documentative forms of scholarly knowledge.
It’s very very clear by most of the posts here, which of you have classical educations in datastructures and computational theory, since 80% of the data posted contains no information.
[Recommended Reading: Practical File System Design: With The Be File System by Dominic Giampaolo ISBN:1-55860-497-9]
As one of my database design projects in college, I developed a fully functional database using only txt files stored on a FAT12 Bootable Partition which booted directly into the db management environment. It wasn’t complex at all since it was mostly batch files that poled for input at the prompt and did a variety of comps, pulls, pushes, and appends +++. I scored 100 on that project because the idea was so unconventional to Prof, but followed perfectly all of the guidelines established in our database design textbook, I simply applied an alternate approach to how we view a database environment should be. We’d all become too accustomed to ‘infrastuctures of our generation’ lol.
Well, WinFS? Never noticed to begin with… I’ve been busy engineering custom solutions to real industry problems for the past 10 years without ever noticing that Microsoft’s new technologies were going to affect what I did, and still do today.
Boohoo, no WinFS. My real concern is with Tech Companies WoWing the kiddies into believing that “Personal Computers” are not important or relavent anymore because “the web” does it better. Hmm, well my private information and documents are oddly enough… MINE, and not stored on an Internet connected PC.
Ciao.
There is no reason WinFS couldnt be used behind the scenes of a web app as well as a winform app, so I do not necessarilly agree that the web killed WinFS.
There is no reason WinFS couldnt be used behind the scenes of a web app as well as a winform app, so I do not necessarilly agree that the web killed WinFS.