Microsoft is asserting that, no, you can have one single operating system on every machine, always familiar.
But it was based on a simple business calculus: limiting its computers to a single operating system had limited the company's growth.
"I've heard people say they want to create a single operating system for IoT, but these people only work with their own devices.
The system is known in technological terms as "agnostic", which means we are not tied into a single operating system or device so our options for the future are open.
It's more efficient to have a single operating system running most of the world's computers: once a new facility is implemented for that system, everyone in the world can benefit from it.
Not only has the company been a remarkably effective marketer, but consumers tend to like having a single operating system because it guarantees that programs running on one person's computer will also run on almost everyone else's.
So compatibility issues are returning to the laboratory, in this case M.I.T.'s noted Laboratory for Computer Science, and the campus is standardizing on a single operating system and communication protocol for use by everyone.
First, it is converging its three platforms – Windows, Windows Phone and the Xbox One games console – on a single operating system with universal apps that run on all three screens: phone, PC and TV.
Before Unix had caught the world's attention, no other single operating system in the minicomputer space had earned such a wide, loyal following.
And that means splitting Windows off into a separate company—still with the network advantages of a single operating system, but without the ability to exploit its monopoly in other areas, and with a big new competitor to boot.Nor is a break-up merely a response to long-past misdeeds.
