How hard is it to do the operating system?

In the last year, red flags in domestic operating systems were in financial crisis, and are now looking to sell at a 18 million price. At the same time, the South Korean side has also burst a boycott of Microsoft, claiming to develop domestic operating system news.

And as the basis of modern digital life, the importance of operating systems is needless to say everyone knows. The operating system as a translator between people and machines, the machine translation of the amount of language for people can easily operate graphics, text. At the same time, the operating system translates human needs into machine instructions for system processing. All communication between man and computer hardware is handled by the intermediary of the operating system.

In fact, people do not like to let a stranger to master their own destiny, so, for a time, there are many national institutions to develop their own operating system. Unfortunately, there are few true winners. The main operating system providers currently visible in the market are estimated to be few.

So why is it so hard to develop an operating system?

1, extremely complex

Microsoft's 2005 Windows Vista code line number is 50 million lines. We use a sheet of A4 paper to print 30 lines to calculate, Vista code out of 1.66 million pages.

Another major operating system Linux core code in 2008 also reached 10 million lines. This is only the basis of the statistics of the system, if the image of the interface and other peripheral systems, the size of the code is not much less than Windows.

2. Huge cost

Businessweek has estimated the development costs of Vista, which is expected to cost more than 20 billion dollars. 20 billion is equivalent to the cost of one of the greatest scientific programs in human history, the Apollo moon mission. Although the times are different, but to know that Microsoft is a commercial company, and "Apollo" is the United States to use a country's strength to support the research project.

Although Linux is an open source free operating system, but free does not mean that no cost. In contrast, a large number of individual organizations around the world have invested heavily in Linux development. A 2008 study by the Linux Foundation found that the Linux community release Fedora 9 would cost about 10.8 billion dollars. The cost is not much lower than the cost of Microsoft's operating system.

3, need to have a large number of peripheral vendors to support

Operating system is only the basis of computer use, outside the operating system, peripheral hardware and software device support determines the success or failure of the operating system.

While returning to Apple, Mr. Jobs, in addition to borrowing 150 million of billions of dollars from Microsoft, has made Microsoft promise to provide office suites to Macs over the next 5 years. Because office is almost the most important business productivity suite, the lack of office Macs is almost impossible to achieve on a large scale. The promise to escort Apple has put its excellent operating system back on the road to revival.

iOS was successful because it was the first to build a complete software ecosystem in the industry. At the end of 2013, the App store in Apple has topped 1 million.

4, strong network effect, the new system is difficult to break through

The more perfect the ecosystem of an operating system, the more the hardware and software vendors it supports, the greater its value, the more people it uses (the so-called network effect). This network effect creates a high cost of substitution, which is so expensive that even the original manufacturer of the system has difficulty persuading users to switch to the new operating system.

Many enterprises and individuals in the old operating system accumulated a large number of software and data, migration to the new system is likely to lead to software failure, data loss, if there is no steel need to promote, it is difficult to allow users to replace the system power.

Winx XP is one such example. Because the system was so successful, XP became the biggest competitor for Microsoft's new system in the future. The South Korean government is also considering developing its own system because Microsoft has stopped updating XP.

When Apple CEO Cook visited the Apple factory, the imac on his production line ran windows and was spit out by netizens. This is also because the Windows installation base is too large, and many industrial software provides only Windows version of the control software. If you want to replace the Mac, it is estimated that the entire production line will have to be replaced.

It is very difficult to make a successful operating system and it is difficult to have a new operating system stand out in a stable environment. But when the big time comes, the new operating system has the opportunity of its breakthrough.

While Microsoft is hogging the desktop, the internet age has come and Linux has become mainstream in the data center because of its natural support for the network. In the advent of the mobile tide, iOS and Android on the homeopathy, occupy the commanding heights.

To do an operating system is not a simple national will and money can be driven, it needs the right and proper coordination, only possible real success.