With the coming of Server Core, there's been a lot of talk of the modularization of Windows. This has been long-coming, of course. The first time I remember hearing about this was around 2001. Those prophesies never seemed to come to, unfortunately -- at least, not in the time frame I was expecting. Well, as late to the game as it may be, it'll be welcome when it is here. What I'd like to see is for Microsoft to take that the extra mile and start making Microsoft Update be the source for installing and updating all Microsoft software. I thought about this after having to track down one after another piece of software online via MSDN or some random download page, which you never can tell if its the latest release or not. Managing it all thru Microsoft Update would be absolutely a dream come true.
Of course, this is only phase 1. Phase 2 of the "new" distro model would be to provide this as a service to othe customers. Allow others to integrate their update software into the Microsoft Update infrastructure. Of course, this would mean we'd need another re-branding of what was originally the Windows Update service. I can't think of any simple name for this, so you know it'll have to be one of those long names we all hate. Perhaps something like "Software Update for Windows" would be relatively simple. This could be a very lucrative offering, as I see it. I can think of a dozen permutations, but the result is all the same.