Vista came out this week. I haven't checked the release version yet, even though Microsoft were kind enough to send me a copy. And before you ask, yes, I will be installing on an iMac!

But as I sit here contemplating the one hour installation time, I wonder whether we really need large monolithic operating systems anymore, and I include Vista, Mac OS X, Solaris and most of the full releases on Linux.

For me, I spend large periods of my time in a brower with web applications, both in terms of interfaces to online systems and my own applications. I am, for example, writing my blog post right now in a blogging environment that is part of the rest of my self developed intranet, where I also read my news, manage my diary, run my projects and read some of my email.