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"My understanding is that Vista SP2 and Windows 7 will be the baseline for both application and device compatibility going forward, and that’s a big part of the code sharing between these two releases. The idea is that if it works in Vista (with SP2) it will absolutely work in Windows 7 as well."

Oh, Paul...Even though what you stated is factual, you left it wide open for the anti-MS crowd to continue the W7 is Vista 2 campaign. Of course, since most of them are blinded by the light shining from Cupertino, they will fail to mention that Leopard is Tiger 2, which is Panther 2, which is Jaguar 2, which is Puma 2, which is Cheetah 2, which is BSD (Some huge number unknown to me).

Me, on the other hand...I will continue to use and enjoy both Windows and OS X...along with various Linux distros and Unix variants.

--tayme

Paul, fascinating stuff.  I trust you're planning to help the city of Dedham pay its unbudgeted arrow cleanup costs.

MikeGalos, so Mr. S. really does walk on water (if this is near right).  I hope that's only figurative this winter.

I am excited! Windows 7 with i7 CPU!!!  Will be time to replace my 4 year old Dell (at that time)

Tayme, just like Snow Leopard is Leopard 2, or in other terms, Leopard done right!  ;)

Still, I feel this is a little early, but it does show that Windows 7 is quite solid out of the gate.

Also, does this also give us the date of IE8?

Official word:  it'll ship on the first of April.

"Snow Leopard is Leopard 2, or in other terms, Leopard done right"

How would you know?  Are you in the Apple beta program?  (Apple's lawyers would like to know - since you'd be under an NDA if you were)

Does Windows 7 have MinWin in it?

If so, what does that mean for Windows Vista SP2, if there is so much code-sharing happening?

So in other words, the supposed "Beta 1" is really, I don't know, RC1 or 2. Gotta love labels.

Even I'm getting excited about Windows 7! :-)

And Snow Leopard too (not 2).  :-)

BTW, gorath:  Most video encoding software DOES use multiple threads, at least now it does.

....oh, and losta:  If you had any sense at all, you'd withdraw your comment about McLobster.  You don't have to do any work to get at the meat, it's cheap, and McDonalds is the biggest local buyer of Lobster in the East Coast, so they support the local economy quite well.

@mike:  Core i7's aren't shipping in multiple CPU configurations yet - just the 3 CPU SKU's and the X58 chipset.  Next year, the product lineup will expand.

We'll see it go mainstream around the time of the Windows 7 launch.

Now, the Xeon 7400 series - that's worth mentioning too:  6-core performance now, in multiple CPU configurations, each with 16MB of L3 cache.  The 7300 chipset supports up to 4 processors, giving you the ability to run 24 threads simultaneously at full performance.

>>Nothing will change with Windows 7 on the inside. What will change is the way Windows users interact with their PCs. And believe me, that’s a good thing. Apple is not gaining market share just due to hype.

If that’s going to disappoint a few users, then so be it.<<

A response to Paul and Mary Jo

technologizer.com/.../windows-stands-to-benefit-from-mac-like-functionality

johnbaxter

I don't know about him walking on water but he's really good at getting projects out the door.

Waethorn

"Are you in the Apple beta program?"

Apple has a beta program? Since when?

Waethorn

"Core i7's aren't shipping in multiple CPU configurations yet "

I know but I really didn't want to get into that level of detail to explain why multi-threaded systems are good.

Pogue:

>>For years, tech critics like me have occasionally endured abuse from the Cult of Mac. If you write anything that even hints at a less-than-perfect Apple effort (like my reviews of, for example, the original Apple TV, iMovie '08 or MobileMe), the backlash is swift, vitriolic and heated. We're talking insults, vulgarities and even threats. I've always thought that that vocal sub-population of Mac fans make up the world's most watchful, most hostile grass-roots lobbying arm.

But now I see that I was wrong. There's an even nastier one: the BlackBerry nuts.<<

www.nytimes.com/.../04pogue-email.html

>>The BlackBerry Storm, in my opinion, is a wonderful illustration of how Apple’s innovation and market appeal can force a smart company like RIM to invest millions of dollars in a product that’s way outside its core competency.  You don’t see Apple trying to create a full-on enterprise/e-mail device, do you?

You don’t, and you won’t.<<

gracefulflavor.net/.../apple-rim

Ocean:

That article you linked to is the biggest waste of cyberspace I've seen today. 'OS X is as powerful or simple as you want." What does that even mean to the reader other than being the raving comment of a Mac fanatic? I use Leopard and Vista every day, and I don't see what is so much more powerful and easy to do in OS X than it is in Vista.

Stop posting inane iBoy drivel.

Who and what is Ocean responding to and/or posting about? I don't see any connection to his gibberish and to the topic of this blog posting.

Am I missing something?

"If you had any sense at all, you'd withdraw your comment about McLobster."

Bite me. First of all, this thread has nothing to do with McLobster. Second, if your "defense" of this crap product is that McDonald's buys a lot of lobster, then you're even more of a moron than I thought. The ocean is being fished dry in order to provide mass-market swill like the "McLobster"?

Unbelievable.

Sorry for the OT post, everyone.

>>What does that even mean to the reader other than being the raving comment of a Mac fanatic?<<

I have a question:  Is everyone (with the exception of Paul) who likes or enjoys a Macintosh a fanatic or a raving lunatic?

I thought Harry Mccrakens description was pretty even handed (that is, the opposite of being over the top).  He said:

>>Up until about three years ago, I had vowed never to buy a Mac, and was using just about every new bell and whistle that Redmond put out.

However when I first started working at BetaNews full time in 2005, things changed. My boss there, also a Mac convert, sent me a PowerBook G4 for work which opened my eyes. While yes, those first few weeks were a mess, soon after I realized that working on a Mac was a whole lot easier than Windows.

--

Performing tasks typically are one click endeavors, rather than multi-click mazes. I always like to say that the one-button mouse was the best thing to happen to Macs: it forced developers to carefully think out their user interfaces.<<

Whats fanatical about that?

my only comment on McLobster is:

Lobster rolls are a fine, time honored tradition in New England and it's nice to see a national chain respecting the regional cuisine. Is McLobster the best lobster roll out there? No. Is it the worst lobster roll out there? No.

>>For example, if you're reading an email using the iPhone Mail application and click on a link to a Web page, the Safari Web browser appears and navigates to that page. Once you're done with that and want to get back to your email you ... hm. What? There's no "Back" button on the device ***because Jobs hates buttons***.<<

Paul, what is your source for this?  

@Waethorn

""Snow Leopard is Leopard 2, or in other terms, Leopard done right"

How would you know?  Are you in the Apple beta program?  (Apple's lawyers would like to know - since you'd be under an NDA if you were)"

Steve jobs said so himself that snow leopard was a fix for leopard. Leopard was horrible at release and it stills has issues to this day with large wireless setups. I have to type the SSID and key every time i move from one building to the next tiger works fine.

>>The choice of Qi Lu to run Microsoft’s online services division offers the clearest picture yet about Steve Ballmer’s vision for the company’s online effort. Its colors are blue, red, yellow and green and it is spelled G-O-O-G-L-E.

--

Mr. Lu was the top search engineer at Yahoo and is credited with helping build a very credible search engine. But he hasn’t run a business or been a product manager. Why would Mr. Ballmer look at this scene and choose an engineer as the leader? It’s not like Microsoft doesn’t have engineering talent.

Here’s one explanation: Mr. Ballmer sees Microsoft’s No. 1 enemy as Google. Google’s No. 1 product is a search engine. So to beat Google at its own game, he may figure he needs the person who can make the best search engine possible. By that standard, Mr. Lu would be on anyone’s short list.<<

bits.blogs.nytimes.com/.../microsofts-google-envy-part-396

"Sorry for the OT post, everyone."

You don't need to apologize. Ocean made has made sure that there's nothing OT as far as this thread is concerned.

Darksages

"Snow Leopard is Leopard 2, or in other terms, Leopard done right"

We actually don't know this. We do know: "Snow Leopard is Leopard 2, or in other terms, Leopard done better"

Whether they get it right or not is another question altogether.

Ocean:

Would you please get lost!

Enough of your crap that does not pertain.

You re not funny either!

McLobster: Decent. But then, lobster, in general, isn't my cup of tea. I prefer shrimp and salmon myself. Preferably with a porterhouse. Medium well done.

Windows 7: Ready to try it out. I've got a spare Acer Aspire (just installed a new LCD on it and souped up with three gigs of memory and 160-gig hard drive) that I'm playing around with as a sort of media center. Love to put Win 7 on that for a try. My mom's already got the beta and loves it; she wasn't too fond of Vista before SP1.

Delmont: Do you really try to pay attention to Ocean? I wouldn't. Except when drunk. Stone drunk.

"Apple has a beta program? Since when?

Developer beta I suppose - what were they given at WWDC?

"Is McLobster the best lobster roll out there? No. Is it the worst lobster roll out there? No."

losta's just jealous, cuz the Canadian McLobster is so much better (as is the other Canadian menu, as well as the decor of the restaurants).

The one in Maine is apparently not so good - having too much mayo, celery, and a pretty sad hotdog bun.  Some reviews say that it's just "flecks" of lobster meat.  The one in Canada has big chunks of meat on an Italian-style bakery roll.  There isn't a lot of filler in it either - just mayo and lettuce.  For less than the price of a lobster restaurant (which aren't cheap anymore on the East Coast), you can get your fill (read: pig out) at McDonald's and not have a messy shell to deal with.  It's still the same meat.  

If McDonald's in the US is still the crap greaseburger restaurant with plastic moulded seats that it used to be, then you have my pity.  Here, it's far different, and it's actually quite a respectable place to eat now.

@ Wae. I know most video encoding uses multiple threads, but they still seem to mainly utilize one core more than the others.

My guess is that video encoding is kinda "do this same math, over and over and over, on this long stream of frames" processing, so spreading to several cores doesn't offer much advantage.

I mean, you can still get better performance out of a dedicated encoder card.

Or maybe Spreading the work out too much makes it hard to keep sync accurately, as the data stream has to be synchronous. I honestly don't know.

"Steve jobs said so himself that snow leopard was a fix for leopard."

"Snow Leopard is Leopard 2, or in other terms, Leopard done better"

Ok, people have to take both comments with a grain of salt.

They said the same thing about Leopard being better than Tiger at launch too.

"I have to type the SSID and key every time i move from one building to the next tiger works fine."

I rest my case.

"Steve jobs said so himself that snow leopard was a fix for leopard."

"Snow Leopard is Leopard 2, or in other terms, Leopard done better"

Ok, people have to take both comments with a grain of salt.

They said the same thing about Leopard being better than Tiger at launch too.

"I have to type the SSID and key every time i move from one building to the next tiger works fine."

I rest my case.

Sevenmack:

I agree! LOL

Your mom is running the beta of Win7?  WOW!  Now that's impressive. I'm being serious.

So figure next fall there will be a "Save Vista" campaign like there was for WinXP? :-)

How does McLobster pertain?

As I've said many times...I post what I find interesting, the rest can comment or ignore.

The responses don't really matter to me...I'll keep posting either way.

gorath

"My guess is that video encoding is kinda "do this same math, over and over and over, on this long stream of frames" processing, so spreading to several cores doesn't offer much advantage."

Exactly the opposite, it's this "do the same thing over and over" that makes it such a good candidate for multiple cores.

In fact, prior to multi-core processors, Intel and the MMX multimedia extensions that allowed for just that sort of parallel work by having multiples of certain parts of the CPU specifically for this kind of repetitive work in media file work.

"So figure next fall there will be a "Save Vista" campaign like there was for WinXP? :-)"

There will be if InfoWorld need to do another stunt to keep readers - after all, they've already given up on credibility.

Getting back on topic, it'll be interesting to see what the actual ship schedule turns out to be. My guess is that the actual gating factor will be Internet Explorer 8 since the decision to have it default to the "standards" compliant engine will require the most external dependancies before it's ready for non-techie users.

"There will be if InfoWorld need to do another stunt to keep readers - after all, they've already given up on credibility."

What do you mean? If that guy Randall hadn't written that article, Windows 7 would've been released in April itself, instead of being delayed and released in April.

Of course, April is Paul's estimate, not the official date given by MS. I wonder how many people will say 7 is delayed if it isn't actually released in April.

Ocean:

So do you also just walk up to people in the middle of a conversation and just butt in with a topic that is totally different? It's just plain rude.

It's what my 5 year old nephew does actually come to think of it.

shark

The real question is who at Infoworld will say they personally scared Microsoft into delaying it past April if it doesn't ship by then.

I'd put in a smilie but the state of tech "journalism" these days is so pathetic that it makes it too likely that some bozo over there will do just that.

I'd be surprised if it's as early as april to be honest. I'm guessing it'll be out for OEMs ready for crimbo 2009, so maybe october/november-ish?

@ Mike: (I am clueless about the encoding process, so I'm not saying you're wrong, just that I don't understand).

I can see how several threads would help with say, multi-channel audio, but for a single synchronous data stream like video, I just don't get it. And besides, most do only seem to use only one core, regardless of the amount of threads.

btw: It's worth noting (in case anyone from Infoworld is reading) that Paul didn't say Windows 7 would be available in April. He said it would be finalized in April and available in June.

gorath

Re: multiple cores for video

The thing about video is that it isn't a single data stream. It's a key frame and deltas. And you can have each processor core working on its own starting at each different key frame without even having to worry about coordination.

Even if you have them work on the same frame at a time, they can each work on a different section and then do a clean-up pass on the edges of each section as the last step.

This really lends itself well to massively multiprocessor systems like Windows HPC server clusters which is why you see big rendering farms in the studios. Even loosely coupled processors are great for video work.

gorath

Re: ship dates

Ideally, to get on the holiday train, you want your stuff ready for the OEMs in the early Fall. But, ideally, you're even better if you can get things ready for the Back to School sales in the late Summer which means getting final builds to the OEMs by early Summer at the latest.

@mikegalos - Obviously, it will be Paul Thurrott that scares them into delaying the release of Windows 7 to April, instead of releasing it in April as they have not been officially stating for some time now.

--tayme

tayme

Nonsense. Infoworld wouldn't give anyone else the credit for delaying a date that doesn't exist. They reserve that right for themselves.

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BTW ... My prediction for Snow Leopard? August 2009.

Yes, really.

Paul

Interesting. Why?

I'd have assumed a Spring launch along with i7 based iMac and Mac Pro systems.

@mike, regarding the video multi-processing:

I see, that does make sense.

I knew that 3d-graphics (or visual effects) rendering can be done in such a way that each available processor calculates a "bucket" (a chunk of one image) but I hadn;t realised you could do this while encoding a video stream as well.

I had noticed something interesting going on with one of our video guys' editing machines though. When rendering to a single file from the timeline, th eCPU was only about 30% utilised, but the hard disk was working at around 230Mb/s. Curious.

I assumed it was the hard disk that was the rendering bottleneck, so I installed a 4-disk RAID0 array, and the video rendering process sped up dramatically, and the CPU was finally being used at between 90-100%.

Here is an interesting take on the Snow Leopard release date - forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php

I find it telling that the first 2 things mentioned in the "Why" section are "To make money" and "serve the stockholders" instead of something like "To improve the end user functionality" or " To correct problems with previous versions". So, its the $129 Service Pack, right?

--tayme

gorath

Finding the real bottleneck is so often key to a speedup. I don't know how many times I've seen even really sophisticated professionals just make an assumption of what needs to be replaced without testing and end up spending money to replace a component that's practically idling while the real problem goes untouched.

"I know most video encoding uses multiple threads, but they still seem to mainly utilize one core more than the others."

"Spreading the work out too much makes it hard to keep sync accurately, as the data stream has to be synchronous"

Most of it has to do with engineering the software to break a process into logical threads.  Video encoding nowadays can't be broken up by frames because with current video codecs, there is a lot of reliance on previous or future video frames.  Spreading the workload out means that you have to synchronize threads in order for that information to be gathered correctly.  That's not a good way to design multi-threaded applications though.  Many encoders will take audio (which doesn't require info on the video, except for a timecode sync), and renders that in a separate thread.  Video effects can sometimes be rendered separately too.

"you can still get better performance out of a dedicated encoder card."

I'd like to see the performance of one of those new SpursEngine cards up close.  The stuff that NVIDIA is doing with GPU processing looks interesting too.  Intel will have their own stuff in Larabee too, likely.  I've seen some of the Matrox video processing cards in action on Adobe Premiere & After Effects too.  Those cards can process effects in realtime, as quickly as the CPU can pass the frames to them.

@mike:

Multi-threaded video encoding is only as good as the optimizations for the shared cache between the cores.  MPEG compression (and every other temporal compression scheme on the planet) requires shared information after all.

tayme

To be fair, Snow Leopard is (if the few statements released are accurate) is likely a necessary update to the aging core of OS X.

This is most likely due to the rapid increase in threading in the industry as processor speeds stalled. While Microsoft has had good practice with larger multiprocessor systems through the server side of the OS group (nothing like getting your teething done on 32 processor super servers), it's likely that Apple found some serious problems with their scheduler when they went over 8 logical processors and either had to do a rewrite or be dead in the water. I'd note that even the high-end Mac family hasn't gone to i7 and given the chance to turn the crank again for the holiday season with a new halo product update, that's awfully suspect. Since it's likely that we'll start seeing 16-32 logical processor systems in the next couple of years, it was either rewrite or die.

While they're doing the update to the scheduler, it looks like they're going to support asymetric processors by offloading some types of processing onto the GPUs and killing off PowerPC support. (Good for the users of newer systems but horrible for those people who bought the last generation G5s and are now abandoned)

Waethorn,

It depends on what you're doing and how you're doing it depending on how you break up the work flow. You can get reasonably good scaling on video work with a cluster farm if you split the work into discrete chunks (keyframe and delta frames)

The link that tayme had posted had a "mash up of a series of ongoing articles by Daniel Eran Dilger at roughlydrafted.com" about Snow Leopard myths. Read that if you get the chance. It's amazing to see how many times MS has been mentioned in those articles. Wow!

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"The BlackBerry Storm, in my opinion, is a wonderful illustration of how Apple’s innovation and market appeal can force a smart company like RIM to invest millions of dollars in a product that’s way outside its core competency.  You don’t see Apple trying to create a full-on enterprise/e-mail device, do you?"

This is what companies do.  Look at when Motorolla came out with the Razer, everyone made a Razer look alike.  And no Apple isn't crating a full-on enterprise/e-mail device because like push to talk  with nextel others companies have tried and failed so Apple isn't even going to try.    Apple like Sony gives people what they think they want instead of listening to them.  They do well working this way which is fine, but they also alienate the people who want certain features or products that they don't yet or won't make.  Like with Apple TV, it can't view TV. I know when it came out people complained that it didn't have a tuner and couldn't work like a DVR.  Cut and paste in the Iphone still isn't implemented.  People hate the Iphone virtual keyboard and say they would want one with a real keyboard.  Thats just a few things...if Apple listened instead of just pretended they're psychic they could do even better.

MS isn't always much better, they kind of have the same frame of mind at times.  MS does listen to customers....after a while.  Like with Vista, they didn't listen to the people while making Vista, but they are looking at what people didn't like with Vista and are trying to fix them in Windows 7.  Same with the Zune, they didn't listen to what people wanted, but they tried to fix it in Zune 2.

I think Windows 7 will ship August or September of 2009.  I think they want to get it out sooner than later since Vista was delayed so long.  I just hope that doesn't hurt Windows 7.  Windows 7 has great promise and if its done well it could greatly help MS getting people to upgrade from XP to 7.  If Windows 7 fails then it could open up a door for Mac.  I think MS knows this and they're going to try their hardest to bring out a good product.

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mikegalos@msn.com:

I don't think you really understand the nature of the current Core i7 chips.

The current models are mainstream desktop parts that have a TDP of 130W.  There's simply no way those will fit into iMacs without melting, and of course they're not intended for multi-socket systems like the Mac Pro. Moreover, the mainboards are often about as expensive as the base Core i7 -- Apple probably doesn't want to bake $600-plus into the cost of a desktop before it's even reached the display.

Apple's fabled "xMac" (a mid-range tower) also likely isn't in the works, and let's not forget -- the company almost never releases a halo product that late into the year.  Not when Macworld is a month or two away and Apple knows it'lll get more PR there.

"Canadian McLobster is so much better (as is the other Canadian menu, as well as the decor of the restaurants)"

Yeah, I'm really missing Poutain on my American McDonald's menu. </sarcasm>

The only thing I'm jealous of in Canada is Tim Horton's, and thankfully they're migrating south now, so the only reason to keep Canada around is so we can exploit its natural resources.

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"I'm really missing Poutain [sic] on my American McDonald's menu"

It's spelled "Poutine", and pronounced "poo-TIN".  Uneducated English speakers pronounce it "POO-teen".  In any case, I don't like it either.  They do have it on the McDonald's menu in Quebec though.  KFC also has it.

"The only thing I'm jealous of in Canada is Tim Horton's, and thankfully they're migrating south now, so the only reason to keep Canada around is so we can exploit its natural resources."

What?  Dunkin' Donuts not good enough for you?  And I don't suppose you can afford Starbucks anymore....

Yet another type of restaurant chain that we do better.

Jon Fingas

No, I do understand that.

I also understand that Apple is now hitting the holiday shopping season with products that are a generation older than their less expensive competitors that do use i7 and thus Apple products don't match up in the "checkbox" comparison that drives retail so often while not having done an update on anything but the laptop line in any significant way in a very, very long time (by industry standards of long time)

Getting PR is good but only if you have competitive product to sell off that PR. What Apple has to offer company wide in 4CQ08 is not compellingly different than what they already sold in 4CQ07.

That hurts them for the non-techie consumer for this holiday season.

What hurts them with the techie consumer for this holiday season is the general perception (true or not) that there will be an iMac/MacPro generation change early next year.

So, the people who track the industry won't buy this Fall because it'd be buying a product thats at end of life and who wants to be the last person paying retail for the old model? The people who don't track the industry won't buy this Fall because Apple's a generation behind and now they're having to compete with not their competitor's top machines but the bargain, close-out models.

So, tell us, why would Apple, a normally very shrewd company when it comes to being competitive for key shopping cycles, get themselves into this situation?

For people that are unsure, Windows 7 <b>is</b> Vista 2.

@robertsjoe - Yup...school's out. Perfect timing. See my earlier post explaining that you would fail to mention the $129 Service Packs coming out of Cupertino.

--tayme

Delmont: Yup she is. My mom's a IT VP at a department store chain and overseas IT for the southeast region. She's become more pro-Mac over the past couple of years, with two Macbooks, a Mac Mini, a tower, several iPods and the iPhone (the original, not the 3G, which she thought was in some ways a step back) over the past few years.

But Vista SP1 won her back over to the Windows side and Windows 7 impressed her. She's got 7 installed on one of her Sony Vaios and she wants to do an install on her main PC laptop, an HP.

From where I sit, Vista is fantastic. The UAC is a great idea, especially for folks like my aunt, who, unlike my mom, screws up every gadget and computer she owns (even though she loves gizmos to the nth degree); I just turn it off and I'm fine. Besides, far too many people were running software that should have been upgraded long ago because they wanted to be cheap. And despite having loaded up my computer with all kinds of graphic design, print layout and entertainment software, my  Vista Toshiba still loads fairly fast compared to my XP Toshiba.

@tayme: Windows 7 (Vista 2) is nothing more than some cosmetics (trying to fix up a mess that Microsoft has not been able to get right since Windows 1.0) and security and service packs rolled together.

For those that can't wait for Vista 2, there's a pre-release of Vista 1's SP2. Almost exactly the same of what you'll get with Vista 2. More of the same.

lifehacker.com/.../vista-sp2-beta-available-for-download

@schoolboy robertsjoe - What about Snow Leopard? I believe that you described it well.

--tayme

"The BlackBerry Storm, in my opinion, is a wonderful illustration of how Apple’s innovation and market appeal can force a smart company like RIM to invest millions of dollars in a product that’s way outside its core competency.  You don’t see Apple trying to create a full-on enterprise/e-mail device, do you?"

But if RIM didn't come out with something, the perception would become that it is lagging behind the times. After all, Palm ignored RIM until it no longer couldn't -- when the market changed and RIM products became dominant in the nascent smartphone market.

RIM is simply trying to stay relevant Can't blame them for attempting to do so (this also applies to M'soft when it comes to Windows). Should it? Not really. The iPhone is nice, but I'm not a big fan of touchscreens; I have a Samsung Instinct that serves my non-work needs nicely and my Samsung Rant actually serves my business needs (quick, on the road e-mail and messaging, along with sweet voice clarity and a loud speakerphone for the times I don't want to done the Bluetooth) better than an iPhone could. For other folks, the basic Blackberry meets their needs better than any of the phones I've mentioned ever could. Most companies, after all, don't care about cool; they care about what works well (example, the Moto Q, which is cool, but few businesses supply to their workers). Blackberry does that job well and should focus on the core.

And, of course, I should say pre-pre-beta for Win 7, not beta (as in, nearly ready for release) since it isn't.

When will there be a public beta of Seven? [for my $400 Vista laptop of course. Did you miss me gang?]

Mack,

Company VP's, as they did with the iPod, will demand that their underlings make the iPhone work.

Rim would have done better to make sure that they kept their base sooo happy that they didn't dare look elsewhere.

PS

That's one of my David Austin English roses. That's my hand, so you can imagine how big the bloom is. I will change it to another rose next week.

"so the only reason to keep Canada around is so we can exploit its natural resources"

Apparently water and lumber mostly comes from Canada too... Maybe if we kept it too ourselves (**evil thoughts...**) if you think about it.. If Canada ever decided to keep its resources the US would greatly suffer... Water being the big one.. hey i just thought of a new war game >.>

DRWAM

There be a public beta of Windows 7 for your $400 Vista laptop in early 2009.

@Ocean - I haven't seen any VP's at the company I work for or any of my cohorts at other companies *demand* that IT make an iPhone work. I have seen it asked about...but in most cases, once again, information security policies won't allow it. Most companies of any size have invested in RIM and MS and do not want to have an iPod in a phone connected to the end users PC's. You must not have any corporate experience.

--tayme

Thanks Mike. It's got an empty partition ready, willing and probably able. I just have a good feeling about it for some reason. Maybe it was the Seinfeld commercials;)

Just did some checking...the company that I work for is, however, reviewing the Storm at this point. Still an absolute policy against iPhones connected to PC's or configured to work with our Exchange environment.

--tayme

DRWAM

I think you just want to be able to talk about your $400 Windows 7 laptop.

:-)

Paul,

I strongly disagree with your assessment. With economic conditions as they are, the announcement of 1.9 million jobs losts and 10.3 million Americans unemployment, I think it would be suicide for Microsoft to launch Windows 7 in 2009. I am sticking with the belief that Windows 7 will launch in May 2010.

Look at the conditions. Do you think businesses or consumers will have the money to make purchases of Windows 7? I sure as hell will not. Windows Vista is doing just fine. Its outselling Leopard 30 to 1. There is no reason in a bad economy to launch Windows Seven unless it is heavily discounted from the retail costs of Windows Vista. Going into 2009, we're going to have more people laid off and looking for jobs. The last thing they are going to do is upgrade their OS. I think people will stick with Vista or XP for the time being.

Second, if Seven fails to be anything less than what Windows 95, 98, and XP were,  MIcrosoft will have successfully open the door for Apple to take a stronger chunk of the desktop market. Forget 10 percent. Microsoft's failure to capture consumer confidence will have a devastating backlash. It will justify greater criticisms of Microsoft and give Steve Jobs the "I told you so" argument.

If Microsoft was smart, they'd stick with the original roadmap. Beta test it through 3/4ths of 2009. RC the OS till the end of December and launch in late January 2010.

If Microsoft is rushing Seven to a 2009 launch and it fails to be nothing less than stellar, I might have to consider looking at a Mac and Snow Leopard. As a consumer, I am saying if Windows Seven doesn't live up to its promise, I would vote with my wallet against Microsoft.

Later.

@mikegalos: "There be a public beta of Windows 7 for your $400 Vista laptop in early 2009."

I believe that they are bringing out Vista 2 in 12 different editions. 23 for the Server.

"BTW ... My prediction for Snow Leopard? August 2009."

Are these predictions like Baller's lame ones too? Where many years ago he said that MSFT would be as relevant in search as Google? He said this years ago, but said they would be as relevant in 6 months. Still waiting. The only way they'd be as relevant is if they outright bought Google.

Baller's == Ballmer's

What?! Bo blog posts about Apple blowing away Microsoft in the smartphone market? Walking over Windows Mobile.

Subzero

"If Microsoft was smart, they'd stick with the original roadmap."

As far as anybody has said, they are.

I have no idea where you got the idea that the plan ever involved a 9 month long beta test followed by a release in 2010. Certainly not from Microsoft.

@mikegalos@msn.com stated:

As far as anybody has said, they are.

I have no idea where you got the idea that the plan ever involved a 9 month long beta test followed by a release in 2010. Certainly not from Microsoft.

Mike,

According to Microsoft when Vienna/Seven was first confirmed that it would be available 3 years from the launch of Windows Vista. January 29, 2007 + 3 = 2010. I don't think my math is that wrong.

Also, Mary Jo Foley with contacts deep within Microsoft had an article saying 2010.

blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft

Also, Mike weren't you a former Microsoft employee? Then what about this email on the Microsoft website from Microsoft Senior VP Bill Veghte, stating 3 years and 2010?

www.microsoft.com/.../letter.mspx

Thats where I got the 2010 roadmap.

Later.

"I have no idea where you got the idea that the plan ever involved a 9 month long beta test followed by a release in 2010. Certainly not from Microsoft."

Didn't they say it was going to be released in 2010? At least that's what Paul mentioned on his blog:

community.winsupersite.com/.../and-the-windows-7-information-deluge-begins.aspx

Bill G said 2009, though.

subzero, the blog says, "approximately" 3 years. It could even mean 2 years and 10 months --> November 2009. :-)

I think they said approximately 3 years and everyone assumed 2010. Microsoft refused to give a firm date. Mike is right on that one.

I'll settle for the beta while I wait. Ooooo, $400 Windows 7 laptop. I would be the first on the block, and that's just how I like it. However, it really does make me wonder about the timing and the economy. But Would a few more months really make much of a difference. Those that want the latest/greatest will want it now. Those that were afraid to get Vista may jump on Seven now. Those with Vista may think that 7 is even better, may want it now. Of course Sub, you probably know by now that I am a big optimist. If some have the pre-beta installed, the public beta oughta work pretty well on my laptop too. Don't get me wrong. Vista works just fine on it. But I need to plat with new toys. I hacked the iPhone and now I'm ready to move on. Yup, I covet 7.

Shark47,

Okay, I'll give you that based on the word "approximately." But everyone else with contacts in Microsoft have been saying 2010.

However, I could see Microsoft waiting till late September 2009 for a Seven launch and make it make sense. However, even though I don't see Vista as a flop as much as our resident Windows haters, I do think Seven needs to recapture that Windows 95 moment. I think September makes sense, because it leaves enough time for 2 betas, 2 RC's, and RTM.

Possibly an November release, but thats pushing things too close to the Holiday selling season and not enough time for marketing and promotion. However, if Seven ends up feeling rushed more so than Vista, then I think you have to give Apple another look. Though a lot of the complaints about OS-X 10.5 Leopard, are that some Mac users are privately saying it was rushed. Quite a predicament if you are a computer user.

Just my two cents, take it or leave it.

I must admit that September seems to be a better choice for a consumer release, or perhaps late summer for the school release. but maybe it's pretty much ready? I know, I'm a little too optimistic.

"However, if Seven ends up feeling rushed more so than Vista, then I think you have to give Apple another look."

I think a lot of people will. Microsoft needs to get 7 right.

Although, I would still claim that Microsoft never gave a definite timeline for 7. If you remember, Paul and others lamented the lack of information coming out of Microsoft about it.  There were also some rumors about 7 being released in 2009 and some MS executives, including Bill Gates have accidentally mentioned it.

Whataya think about my rose?

Interesting discussion. If people are to give Apple another look because 7 does not impress, they will definitely have to lower the cost to the consumer. This will be especially true if the downward spiral of the economy continues.

--tayme

Some say love, it is a river.....

--tayme

Or a $400 Windows 7 lappy!!!

--tayme

Subzero,

There is no way in hell MS would postpone the launch of Windows 7 -  not with Snow Leopard set to release mid-next year. They can't afford to give the Apple iTards further ammunition to claim MS couldn't "fix Vista yet.. and now are delaying their next operating system to compete with the awesomeness of Snow Leopard." If they are smart, Seven will cost less than Vista does.

Actually, Windows Vista shipped in Fall 2006 to businesses and OEMs. "About 3 years after" that is somewhere between Summer 2009 and Early 2010.

"If people are to give Apple another look because 7 does not impress,"

Seven (Vista 2) will not impress. As Vista didn't. As XP didn't. They have not, and will not get a good OS out the door.

OT: But the Songbird topic is closed.

Songbird's CEO was quoted in the following article that's getting up on Digg's front page: hothardware.com/.../Apple-Blocking-iTunes-Competition-for-iPhone

@mikegalos - I thought that you meant me when you said songbird....

--tayme

@ subzero:

I agree 100%.

The company I work for just gave a few people their walking papers due, in no small part, to the economy. And we're still mostly on XP boxes; there are a few who have Macs (more on that in a second).

There was talk about getting us up to Vista come the new year... maybe. Win 7? Pffft... right.

If MS was smart, they'd hold off on Win 7 until 2010 - 1) this would give them a chance to really add some polish to the OS and 2) see what the economic landscape looks like.

Don't forget, there is also the consumer market who have purchased new PC's with Vista pre-installed - now all of a sudden there is Win 7 which is supposed to be, pretty much, an apology for Vista? Yup. Sure. Very little sales there as well; we all know most people use whatever OS is pre-installed on their computers. This goes for the everyperson who buys PCs AND Macs.

And before all you Windows people jump on me, I'd say the same to Apple too. Out of all the folks in the office who have Macs, only three of us are on Leopard; and IT told us that it was on our own dime, and if the computers f**ked up, it was "Back to Tiger with you!". No Windows 7 and no Snow Leopard anytime soon.

runtime

"all of a sudden there is Win 7 "

three years is hardly "all of a sudden". It' pretty much the historically normal cycle for Windows versions and only one third as "all of a sudden" as OS X which has had 6 versions (10.0 - 10.5) in just over 6 years.

@subzero, RunTimeError

If you assume that early 2010 would be when companies are ready (due to the economy) to start talking about upgrading to 7...

... and you assume that most businesses don't upgrade until SP1 of any OS...

... then does Summer 2009 make sense for an initial public release?

"now all of a sudden there is Win 7 which is supposed to be, pretty much, an apology for Vista"

It would have been an apology for Vista if it had been release a year or two after Vista. Vista SP1 was probably an apology for Vista. (Remember that Microsoft's service packs are free.)

@mikegalos: "three years is hardly "all of a sudden". It' pretty much the historically normal cycle for Windows versions and only one third as "all of a sudden" as OS X which has had 6 versions (10.0 - 10.5) in just over 6 years.

Except for the 6+ years for Vista. Don't forget to mention that.

@ mike

I hate to agree with robertsjoe, but he beat me to it. We're talking Pro IT upgrade paths here. The only reason we "maybe" getting Vista in early 2010 was due to SP1. By "all of a sudden" I meant while Apple was putting out so many versions of OS X, Microsoft was plodding along with Longhorn/Vista...

... the Mac users had a 8 - 12 months between version upgrades. Windows users at our company, until last year, had XP and XP only. Now that we *may* be getting Vista, here comes Win 7 in 2009?

Whatever. Paul's predictions change as much as his like/dislike of Apple. I simply agreed with subzero's statement that MS should hold off until sometime in 2010.

@ shark: while I agree that Vista SP1 was good, and free (god knows I love MS Service Packs - except, if you'll allow me to step back in time, for Win 2K SP2 which was HORRIBLE I rolled back to SP1 until they got SP3 rolled out), it was still not enough to save the Vista name brand.

ahh found a good quote.  I knew I read that the estimated ship date of Windows 7(early estimate) from Microsoft was 3 years after the general availability of Vista.

www.microsoft.com/.../letter.html

"To this end, our plan is to deliver Windows 7 approximately 3 years after the January 2007 general availability launch date of Windows Vista."

eh I give them a 95% chance of shipping at least 5 months earlier than that old estimate.

OK. Let's put it in perspective

Using just the major upgrades (So, 98, 98SE and 98ME all the same) so that we go for the longest reasonable timeframe between versions we have:

Windows 1->Windows 2 - 2 years

Windows 2->Windows 3 - 2 1/2 years

Windows 3->Windows 3.1 - 2 years

Windows 3.1->Windows 95 - 3 years

Windows 95->Windows 98 - 3 years

Windows 98->Windows XP - 3 years

Windows XP->Windows Vista - 5 years

Windows Vista->Windows 7 - 3 years

Aside from Vista being 2 years late the pattern is a new version of WIndows every 3 years so having a new version of Windows come out 3 years after Vista is the normal release cycle.

If you want to start planning, you can probably expect that Windows 7 will be replaced with "Windows 8" sometime in 2012.

Now, as for releasing in June (as Paul actually predicts) versus January...

Do any of you honestly think that Microsoft or a single Windows OEM want a new operating system to ship AFTER the holiday shopping season?

Do any of you honestly think that Microsoft or a single Windows OEM want a new operating system to ship AFTER the back to school shopping season?

You try to ship an operating system in time to get it on all the new computers that people are buying for back to school and holiday shopping. That way you drive the industry and minimize the number of people that have to buy a computer and then turn around and have to do a major upgrade. It's good for the OEMs, it's good for the consumers, it's good for the economy.

Windows major versions have typically been released in the middle of the calendar year for just that reason - It gets the OS out the door in time for OEMs to get it on their computers when people actually are buying new computers.

Now, for those saying Windows 7 isn't a "shake up the industry" huge change, I'd really suggest a history lesson.

Let's look at the timing of those Windows releases that caused disruptions because they did major changes to the architecture:

Windows 1->Windows 3 - 4 1/2 years (386 protect mode)

Windows 3->Windows 95 - 5 years (32-bit preemptive OS)

Windows 95->Windows XP - 6 years (Windows NT kernel)

Windows XP->Windows Vista - 5 years (security architecture, search and soft-link files)

So, we're not due for a "shake up the industry" level OS change yet. The industry and the publc aren't ready and aren't even really taking advantage of all the changes that are already out there.

Runtime

"I hate to agree with robertsjoe"

That should have been a good hint that you had something wrong

:-)

@Raaj,

So if Windows Seven launches and it is less than consumers want, wouldn't that still give the hardcore and regular Mac fans a legit gripe. I can hear it now if Seven is less than stellar.

I can tell you what Lindy, RobertsJoe, Ocean, john, and the rest will say.

"Microsoft has produced two consecutive duds. Can we say M.E. beta 3! Look how good SnowLeopard looks! More Microsoft customers not buying Seven. Apple's taking the market by storm!"

Yeah, I can already hear it. So I would rather have Apple rush Snow Leopard out the door and have Windows Seven be pretty damn stellar. A lot of businesses were planning to upgrade to Vista in 09. I'm pretty sure that has been put off while the market is in a freefall. If they have no money for Vista, they won't have any money for Seven.

@timii,

Again I would have to say no. If the polish and performance aren't there, then businesses will react to the public word of mouth reaction. Its critical that Microsoft continue to polish Windows Seven. You are going to compound the situation with Vista with Seven feeling "rushed."

My arguments is this. What's the rush? Vista is still on pace with XP sales. If consumers aren't rushing out to buy PC's, they aren't going to buy a new OS. This is will be the first time a Windows OS will face a major recession scenario. If sales this holiday season are flat, along with more layoffs in 2009, customers are going to keep their wallets shut. This also is true for Apple, as they are making drastic cuts to spur sales.

If the economy is still in the tank by May 2009, then Seven's reception will be met with poor sales. This is not the PR story Microsoft needs.

So instead of feeding to Hardcore Windows fans paranoia, take a play out of the playbook of Barack Obama. Patience, pragmatism, and a firm hand. Continue your "A" game. Beta test the heck outta Seven. Make it the biggest public beta to date. Constantly test and retest benchmark scores so that it beats XP, Leopard, and SnowLeopard hands down. Refine every element until we have an RC code that impresses with a blind test. Then you RTM and have the mother of all launch parties. 2010 is fine because all of the best Windows launches are 3 years apart.

I don't pretend to know the timing of the release of Win7, but it will be ironic to have all our computers at work (the only place I use Windows to any extent) STILL running XP. Vista has been not just ignored by our IT people, it is prohibited.

This is more a statement about our IT systems than it is about Vista, but it will be just weird to be that far behind the curve. Microsoft should spend a lot of effort on dragging some of their business customers along.

The other odd thing is that, at the office, Vista is -prohibted-, while OS X is allowed, although not officially supported. The unofficial support is pretty good, since some of the IT staff like it and run it on their personal machines.

Maybe Microsoft needs to sell Win7 with a virtual machine pre-installed that runs XP?I'm almost serious about that...

Cost is typically the issue if something is not needed. Our systems run  fine on XP and a Vista upgrade is just not needed, and would be expensive to buy and implement. We are not avoiding Vista for any other reason. Our Pacs servers run XP and GE owns the software, so GE would be the one to make any upgrade, and they won't for quite some time [FDA stuff mostly]. When we replace our IS actually RIS for Radiology IS], we will certainly insure that we can use Vista.

Now, our 3 hospital,Health care system is moving to Microsoft Amalga as it's IS. Many of us see this as a very smart move, not as it's much more affordable, but compatibility is built it for future OSes. This will enable us to upgrade/replace computers with more modern OSes from MS, rather than the need for legacy products.

@RTE: "[Vista SP1]  was still not enough to save the Vista name brand."

Well, Windows 7 doesn't even carry the Vista name brand. It's a totally different version of Windows, so if Sp1 couldn't save Vista, I don't that 7 will.

@chuck: "I don't pretend to know the timing of the release of Win7, but it will be ironic to have all our computers at work (the only place I use Windows to any extent) STILL running XP. Vista has been not just ignored by our IT people, it is prohibited."

I deal with a lot of clients in my current role. Almost every client I've met uses Windows XP with IE6 and Outlook 2003. Forget upgrading to Vista. They still haven't gone from IE6 to IE7, which is a free update. One of our clients is only now moving to Vista. We are still on XP. I'm waiting for the day that they choose to upgrade.

Paul ( here ) think is expecting Windows 7 to be finalized by April, at the latest. My personal opinion

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