Submitted by “It’s no secret that WinFS was a great idea without a killer application. Microsoft had to go to great lengths in their demos and evangelism to get people to picture what would be capable with a WinFS application. Microsoft also had problems recruiting for their ‘killer app’ because those job openings posted on the WinFS blog were actually first posted on the Microsoft website in February and still unfilled in May. iView’s Media Pro application is the perfect killer app for WinFS/SQL Server codename ‘Katmai’. It relies heavily on a database for it’s features.”
It looks like iViews web site is hosted on Linux/Apache as well, that should change fairly quickly.
The first thing I thought when I read this was an Apple product being built for WinFS. Stupid iApp names. On that note, though, wonder how long until MS kills the Apple version.
Not that I’m enthused about it, but I think it’s excellent strategy by MS. They really need a tool like this to round out the “quality” media tools available for Windows. And, when they start extending it with active-x components or whatever they’re using with that dot net stuff these days, it will integrate very nicely with their managed code IDE’s to allow new types of views, reports, web presentation, batch jobs, scripting interfaces, etc. I predict that Apple’s iTools will pick up some of the features that iView had, and Aperture will pick up the high end stuff. So whether or not I’m enthused about this news, if I was a MS investor, I’d be quite pleased. Curious to see what MS does with this project now.
Since it makes sense to organize data in database style, and the windows registry is a database, Microsoft should have shipped a database with their operating system.
They should also provide an API for treating the database as a filesystem.
Then the Windows Explorer should have used this database to enhance the user experience, and the new Office suite’s default option should have been to save the documents in this database.
Windows Explorer in Vista is built upon a database. Microsoft also gives away SQL Server Express for free. Before that they gave away a similar product called MS database Engine (MSDE).
I believe Jet and SQL Server Everywhere are free as well.
Windows Explorer in Vista is built upon a database.
Ok, but how widespread is this database usage in Vista? does the new Office use it? is there an API to use the database as a (sort of) filesystem? can any app connect to this db as a view like in the ‘model-view-controller’ pattern?
That’s nonsense – in LH it USED to be built on a SQL db, but not since the LH reboot in ’04
Now only if MS cud offer something like
1. Ultra-low latency audio, audio device aggregation, native 24-bit 192 KHz and rocking MIDI features
2. Apple Advanced Typography (they should just license it from Apple)
3. Quartz Composer and Core Image
then creative and media pros will shift to MS’s platform.
But alas, they’ve long forgotten other DirectX APIs in favour of Direct3D.
1. Vista has ultra low latency audio and 24-bit 192 KHz output.
2. MS has cleartype which looks much better on screen than anything Apple has.
3. Quartz Composer? LOL Use Expression Interactive Designer. Core Image is just a layer over HLSL. It’s not offering any *new* functionality just making it easier to write for those without openGL skills. Microsoft has DX and it does everything CoreImage does. It’s been used to do hardware accelerated image processing for 4 years now… Pinnacle (now Avid) Liquid and Media Player Classic are prime examples.
DX 10 brings GPGPU to the table which lets the GPU process anything and removes all the silly limitations of CoreImage… such as the inability to handle CMYK (in its entirety). They’ve got DX10 doing physics and particle computations now but you can use it to process any kind of data.
I agree with all your points…
But just to add: XOrg has better “ClearType” than Windows – a Million times better. Try it.
Who says I haven’t tried it? I run Dapper Drake and Suse 10.1 at home.
They just can’t.
It’s simply not going to work… This article (previously on OSnews too) explains it quite well:
http://neosmart.net/blog/archives/200
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=134707
That’s the Channel 9 video about Windows Mail (Outlook Express). They talk a bit about the database used in it and how it’s used in the Docuement Explorer, RSS store etc. So no, it isn’t nonsense.
You can clearly see that the Document Explorer is based on a database if you use it long enough. You often get error messages telling you that folders won’t display correctly until everything is indexed.
How widespead is database usage in Vista? Windows Photo Gallery, WMP, Mail, Document Explorer, Game Explorer, RSS Store and probably a few more that I’m forgetting about.
Yes, there are API’s for both Jet and SQL Server Everywhere/Express. Yes, Office does use it extensively. Outlook in particular.
… so if all this stuff is going into Vista, what are they cancelling exactly?
Vista is not based on a relational data store. It’s just using NTFS. Document Explorer is just a quick search result 2.0. Neither it nor Windows Explorer will be built on a relational data store.
Those apps are built on silo’d dbs like we already use. I was excited watching that OE video but beta 2 Mail is not the same as the demo. A lot of people were pissed about this Channel 9 video hyping us up only to see Blah, myself included.
——————–
MS bought iView because Vista integrated Digital Image Library and they need a replacement. MS filled a gap in their product line. iView easily smokes candy apps like ACDSee, iPhoto, and PSE while providing the tools to handle pro-size libraries.
MS had plenty of apps to create a wonderful ecosystem foundation to prove WinFS. Outlook, OE, Digital Image Library, Money, Streets n Trips and many more. They just couldn’t cut the cord to backward compatibility.
Imagine
– Money’s accounts stored as (secure) Contacts and aren’t any different than Outlook’s. I hate having to open Money to see an account’s phone # and I hate duplicating info in both lists.
– dragging a Money contact for a bill to S&T or live local, etc and it shows me that location.
– looking up Bryce Canyon and drag that to a 1500-shot vacation and the info is auto-entered into the location data for EXIF/ IPTC.
– dragging restaurant searches from Google Local or Local Live to my contacts folder and it saves them as Contacts. Boom! quick take-out list.
– drag/ associate multiple pictures to a Contact or from a Contact (sorta there).
I could go for days thinking of simple relational ideas like this that would make everyday computing more useful. They just won’t be in Vista.
Wrong. Vista isn’t *based on* a relational store but all of the apps are. Jet blue (ESE) and SQL Server Express/Everywhere are relational.
Where do you see Mail in that video as being different than Beta 2?
iView isn’t going to replace the digital image gallery in Vista and Microsoft has never really pushed their digital image suite in any meaningful way so there’s no reason to believe they are going to now. They might use iView with Expression because it fits perfectly there. iview is way too advanced for the rest of the digital image suite (and by extension MS Works).
Their current Digital Image Suite (library) already smokes iPhoto, and PSE so that obviously wasn’t their motivation either. Rmemeber, the DI Suite is not for professionals or power users so there’s no point in putting iview in there.
iView is supposed to go up against Adobe Bridge, Aperture and such not iPhoto and PSE.
————–
Microsoft needs professional level apps to adopt WinFS/Katmai. DI Suite, Money, Streets and Trips aren’t going to do it. They need iView, Premiere (media management), Sony Acid/Vegas, ACDSee, Avid Xpress Pro etc. to adopt it.
———
most of your senarios have anything to do with a WinFS/Katmai in particular. The Money/Contacts issue is just a lack of integration with the Windows Addressbook. It would be fairly trival for Outlook to support Messenger contacts and so forth. They already have a store for all those contacts… they just don’t use it.
there’s already a Windows Live Local plugin for Outlook that shows you the location of appointments and such… just a lack of integration that keeps it from being in every app.
I wish the Linux people would implement a database filesystem. That way, we could have what would have been the one good feature of Vista and only Linux would have it as past of the OS…
There is already a kind of LinFS available: Reiserfs4
They have lots of databases shipping with Vista (even Outlook Express on XP uses a database) it’s just that none of those db’s are WinFS stores. When Katmai comes out then all those databases will be migrated to that and the effect will be the same in many ways. But today’s SQL Server (Express, Enterprise, Everywhere etc.) aren’t the same as what Katmai/WinFS will be.