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" As a result, our approach with Windows 7 is to build off the same core architecture as Windows Vista so the investments you and our partners have made in Windows Vista will continue to pay off with Windows 7"

So in other words.... if you continue to run XP and wait for Windows 7, you're going to be getting Vista 2.0, not "XP Reloaded".

Are you listening I.T. professionals?

I agree.  Gartner, in one of their few moments of actual intelligence, said pretty much the same thing.  People waiting for Windows 7 in hopes that they'll get another XP are in for a very bad awakening.

JamesNT

"People waiting for Windows 7 in hopes that they'll get another XP are in for a very bad awakening."

....or could it be....a very good one?!

It will be a good one for me since I own all of Mark Minasi's books, his audio sets, and have three Vista test boxes and have as such actually learned how to use the OS.  I'll be more than prepared for Windows 7 when it comes out like I was with Vista, therefore, I'll be able to charge nice consulting fees.

JamesNT

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hmmm.... keep the artitecture, throw in a new UI, new wmp, call it windows 7...  id take that.

Seriously, it's because they might miss the holiday season once again and they've been hinting more at 2009 than 2010. Hopefully this is one of those hugely long lead times, where it's done in late summer and won't ship in retail boxes until January but will ship via OEMs earlier.

Paul, just on your "swiftboat" article, I would like to say that your argumentative platform is totally inconsistent with the things you've said in the past.

I mean, you've criticised the fact that the iPhone has been pretty slow selling, and that Mac user base is still infinitesimally small worldwide, so why all the hysteria that somehow, if Microsoft doesn't respond to the churlishly infantile Apple ads, it is in the doldrums?

It simply doesn't make any sense in my view, given your previous arguments. After all, Microsoft's revenue growth and profits still continue to grow at reliably sizeable rates every year - if the Apple ads were so effective, surely their would at least be a correlative link. There isn't.

Bill Gates said it himself just recently:

"The economics haven't changed. I mean, the economics of software are very simple. Most of the profitability is made up out of making businesses more efficient. We saw operating systems and we saw productivity software, and those are not advertising-driven things. The online is changing some of how you deliver e-mail and collaboration and those things, but we've been doing that off of servers, we have great cloud stuff that Ray (Ozzie) is driving. So, it's not really the economics."

Microsoft's success has always been about a business-oriented focus. To then suggest, as you did Paul, that businesses are now going to ditch Microsoft software for some second-rate Google App equivalent is not only laughable, but is a total misunderstanding of how businesses work.

So, I'm sorry, but I disagree with the notion that Microsoft must respond to Apple's crap. Apple is successful because 90% of the iPods it sells are able to run well on Microsoft Operating systems.

The source of my Bill Gates quote: news.cnet.com/.../2009-1014_3-6242276-2.html

I still think that's stupid to wait for windows 7.

It's like a baby who does not eat a tasty chocolate and cream ice-cream because then decides she wants straberries too on it. It's a patethic excuse that reveals only the fear of change and the enormous difficulty Microsoft has in advertising its own beautiful (because they are for real despite all the fud around) product like Vista.

I heard a lot of analysts making parallels between Vista e WindowsME.

Well, it's not the case from my perspective but if we accept this parallel we can objectively consider that WInMe was a better experience than Win98 SE. That's no doubt about that. I've worked a lot with that system and i had no serious issue.

Another consideration is that if you look back in XP adoption rates in 2001 you see clearly the same situation (and the same lame or fud around it) as for Vista now.

Basically, the history repeats itrself. Nothing new.

As much as for Apple... I don't even consider serious/useful talking too much about a three-per-cent business worldwide.

Surely, Microsoft is slow because every corporation of those dimensions is and pretending it's an abnormal fact is not fair, basically.

Surely the future of computing is on the web, maybe desktop apps will be progressively disappearing (exception made for niche markets) and OS will be progressively transformed in online portals.

Is Microsoft capable in taking the challenge? We'll see.

:-)

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I still think that's stupid to wait for windows 7.

It's like a baby who does not eat a tasty chocolate and cream ice-cream because then decides she wants straberries too on it. It's a patethic excuse that reveals only the fear of change and the enormous difficulty Microsoft has in advertising its own beautiful (because they are for real despite all the fud around) product like Vista.....Nickelgreen

I agree, The one thing that I have come to realize about the tech pundit community is that there must be  controversy for controversy sake, otherwise there would be a lot less for them to write about.

Another consideration is that if you look back in XP adoption rates in 2001 you see clearly the same situation (and the same lame or fud around it) as for Vista now.

Basically, the history repeats itself. Nothing new.

Nikelgreen

Yes, and it's something that Microsoft pointed to before the release of Vista, they projected a slow take up in the business community because of the way these organizations upgrade at  a much slower cycle.

Yet the on line pundits where awash in the news that many Businesses had no intentions of upgrading to Vista that year.

"People waiting for Windows 7 in hopes that they'll get another XP are in for a very bad awakening."

....or could it be....a very good one?!

Waethorn.

XP is a great and solid ...but old OS, it's the past and belongs there.

With all of the architecture work done for Vista, this drastically cuts down the work being done on Seven. Microsoft can focus on five critical areas.

Optimization - This is one area MS needs a lot more work on. A more indepth and robust testing for multi-core optimization as well as DDR2/3 so people can see the speed differences. Make every app in Windows optimised more so than Vista. I'd even do specific testing to get Windows running at Warp Speeds versus the Full Impulse power of Vista. Speedy but hey we could always use more.

Resource Management - This is something I know MS could definitely do better on. I would like MS to take a less is more approach with. Push down the memory requirement as far as possible. This is one of the reasons I prefer AVG over say a Norton or McAfee because of the minimal use of resources. Now we can argue that other ones say a One Care Live is more effective. I'll save that for a future posting. I kind of agree with One Care, but for the sake of example I'll pass on the argument. However, Norton and McAfee are a huge drain on resources and OS response. Not to mention, they didn't do their jobs very well. Back to the point, Microsoft should doing its best work to make the OS fly on the least amount of resources.

Multiple UI Choices - I think Windows Weekly 62: Instant Rimshot was right on the money. Instead the limited UI choices, diversification would be a welcome change. Include a lot of different UI's for people to play with. I saw a lot of good concepts on AeroXP.org. Also include some twist and variations on the Mac UI and Ubuntu UI. Not a verbatum copy, but a spin on it to help Mac/Linux users feel more comfortable.

Cloud and Application Manager - As we move further into the cloud era, I would like to see MS integrate a non browser based application manager/cloud services manager. Since many of us are receiving things from the cloud more so than from tradtional media and Retail shops, bring that functionality right into Seven. One of my biggest complaints about Vista is that certain applications are much harder to remove. IE 7 and WMP are my top two. Besides making those apps easily removeable, the ability to add competing apps would squash a lot of the anti-competition lable associated to MS. Then to be able to pull apps, files, sync with the same app would be nice too.

Start Up and Shutdown - This is one area MS really does need to work on. There has to be a faster way to get Windows started and turned off. Nough Said.

I"m sure there's more, but those are my top 5.

"XP is a great and solid ...but old OS, it's the past and belongs there."

Exactly my point.  XP is closer to 2000 than Vista is to XP though.  Windows 7 will be based on Windows Vista, but will be more refined, just as XP was a more refined version of 2000.  The Windows 2000 codebase needs to be killed.  Vista did that, but Windows 7 will make that codebase a bit more mature.

What should the over/under be?

Let's see, we know it is going to be late the question is, how late?

Personally, I'd put the over/under at six months.  Clearly it won't be years late like vista, but MS has never delivered anything on time.

Nicklegreen, are you serious, "Windows ME was a better Experience than 98SE?"  I think it is common knowledge that 98SE was the pinnacle of 9X development.

Finally, hitman, you had me right up until you said there should be multiple UI choices.  Wasn't the whole point of MS having a monopoly a unified interface and unified developer platform.

Why should user interface change simply because you buy a different version of Windows, if anything MS should dump all the versions of windows and just give their customers the ultimate version with the ability to strip or turn off features they are not interested in.  For example, every mac comes with a version of Apache, that doesn't mean you have to use it.  

The reality is unless you buy the ultimate version you are getting a crippled version of Windows.  For example, why is backup and bit locker not available on home premium?  Answer MS wants you to upgrade.  Guess what you can get bit locker, and backup on a Mac for 129.00 versus 399.00.

Please explain to me again how much cheaper windows is?

Regards

Joe Dokes

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@Joe Dokes

Yes i'm serious.

I know well WIndows Me and i think that installed on hardware of its times it was top-notch. A lot more better than its previous brother, WIndows 98 SE.

It has important features of backup and introduces movie maker which can be considered a fine program for those times.

I remeber some crash but nothing painful or annoying like on windows 98.

I think seriously that WinMe is the most underestimated OS of history and most of the bias you hear about it is pure fud or dictated by ignorance.

For second argument, I don't care at all about "common knowledge" because the quantity of opinions on something doesn't trasform it in a real objective fact.

It was "common knowledge" that the sun was revolving around earth, for example, but we know now this "knowledge" was totally wrong.

So, yes, i'm serious. WinMe was really better than Win98. And if you read the review Paul did when it came out first, you'll know why.

:-)

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No muchas noticias, pero interesantes! Windows 7 para enero del 2010 ? Como siempre, "si no se retrasa"

"I know well WIndows Me and i think that installed on hardware of its times it was top-notch. A lot more better than its previous brother, WIndows 98 SE."

I will agree with that assessment.

ITZ MOAR BETTER!

Before USB 2.0 was available, there was something called IEEE 1394.  Support for it on Windows 98 was a joke.

Before Windows Me, 98SE's support of WDM drivers was just tacked on.  Windows Me adopted the Windows 2000 format of the WDM format, which brought in stability enhancements to the consumer versions of Windows that just weren't there before.  If you were lucky enough to have consumer hardware from a company that created WDM drivers for it, you saw those enhancements.  VxD's weren't supported in Windows Me, so those upgraders that didn't have logo'd hardware had the most problems, mostly due to the fact that they forced (read: b*tchslapped) VxD's into their installation.  That's where the stability and performance problems came from.  There is a reason why they have the WHQL after all.

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@Joe

The reason why I stated add more UI to Windows is because many Linux variants do offer it. Yet we don't see software developers blowing a gasket when some new UI theme appears on Ubuntu. This idea that one UI fits all is very closed minded.

Of course MS will always have the same start menu/orb and taskbar. Plus they'll have the now legacy 2000 start menu/orb configuration. Adding them as user chosen additional options wouldn't destroy Windows at all. I think that variety is the spice of life and Windows needs some spice.

Who knows? Since MS always does things better the second or third time around, perhaps they'll come up with a spin of the Mac OS UI that is better? Or perhaps a spin on what Ubuntu's default is like? Or even something completely different. There's no problem with trying it. If it doesn't catch, then it doesn't go into the next version.