------------------------------------------------------------------------------ B O S T O N U N I V E R S I T Y Computer Science Department C O L L O Q U I U M Wednesday, November 13, 1996 3:00 pm (Coffee served at 2:30 pm, Room MCS 137) Room MCS 135 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ EVOLUTION OF WEB-CENTRIC OPERATING SYSTEMS Franklin Reynolds Apple Computer, Inc. One Main Street Cambridge, MA 02142 fdr@cambridge.apple.com One of the most important characteristics of the World Wide Web is its almost frantic pace of change and technological innovation. This has fueled much of the phenomenal growth of the Internet for the last couple of years. In contrast, traditional operating systems are notoriously complex and difficult to maintain and to enhance. Their implementation, if not their semantics, is often platform specific and there is increasing pressure to standardize on one or at most, a small number of operating systems, which further reduces the opportunities for technological innovation. Generally speaking, standardization stifles innovation. Even when new OS technology is developed, the need for Web applications to be deployed in the heterogeneous environment of the Internet makes it difficult to exploit innovations unique to a particular OS. These problems have not gone unnoticed and promising research is being conducted at various institutions. In this talk I discuss how these emerging technologies may be integrated into a new generation of operating systems which facilitate the development and deployment of new, high performance, distributed applications. Host: Prof. David Yates ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ For colloquium info, including directions, see http://www.cs.bu.edu/colloquium For more information contact Prof. David Yates ------------------------------------------------------------------------------