Vito Cassisi – Tech Blog Delving into technology

Software goes from bloatware to performance-aware

Large companies are realising the need for fast and efficient software. Have they seen the light?

It's inevitable that the progression of software will lead to software with higher overheads, commonly referred to as 'bloat'. This term is often seen as derogatory, and used to convey how 'performance hungry' a program is, i.e. memory, storage and clock cycle usage. Bloat is not always a bad thing though. As software evolves to cater for new technologies and markets, it grows. Adding functionality almost certainly increases the requirements for that piece of software. Many users look at the package as a whole and get disheartened by the sheer size, for example, Windows Vista. Is this viewpoint justified? Maybe so. Nonetheless, companies have noticed a trend towards slimmer and more efficient alternatives. For this reason, we're now seeing an active effort to reduce 'bloat' within the industry.

I'm sure many of you have heard the news and overall excitement regarding the upcoming release of Windows 7. For the uninitiated, Windows 7 is the latest version of the Windows family of operating systems by Microsoft. Windows 7 is essentially a tweaked version of Windows Vista with a few added features and GUI elements. The performance has been noticeably improved, particularly in regards to responsiveness. What makes it noteworthy is that it runs better on identical systems running Windows Vista! It's the first time a Microsoft OS has outperformed its predecessor, and this is without losing functionality too.

Microsoft have made it clear that they're listening to the public, and taking in suggestions. But they're not the only company making a change for the better, the infamous Norton has done the same with their AntiVirus products. Norton has had a bad name in the enthusiast circles for its very bloated, low performance products. At one point Norton AV products were so intertwined with the host OS that it needed its own removal tool! Slowly these issues were resolved, however the performance hit was still too large for an AV product. People turned to more efficient free alternatives such as Avira and Avast to cater for their protection needs.

This all changed when Norton re-wrote their software to produce Norton AntiVirus 2009. At first people were not convinced, but after many excellent reviews by respected journalists, it has recovered some respect amongst professionals. A fast, effective and non-obtrusive product. It may not be free, but it's hard to beat its detection and false-positive rates. Much like Microsoft and Windows 7, Norton produced a product that considered performance just as important as any other feature.

This trend is what I'd like to see continue. Just because computers are getting more powerful, doesn't mean they should exploit all this power to cut development costs. Rather, it should promote an increase in functionality and efficiency. That being said, a new product doesn't have to have less bloat than a predecessor. If the aforementioned functionality requires the use of additional computing resources, then so be it! Nonetheless, consumers do not want to see performance hits with nothing to show for it - it shouldn't ever be this way.

If the industry continues to head toward performance awareness, the future of software will be a pleasant one. Consumers don't want to need the latest computers to carry out mundane tasks. We want to take advantage of our machines raw performance, not drench it with excessive overhead. And for this reason, I say kudos to those who are actively making a difference.