Windows Vista… even with SP1 out we still do not see much of the new platform. Users and the industry are resilient in adoption of Windows 6 in their everyday activities.

To be truthful, many things available in Vista (GUI level) could be “hacked into” XP (for example with Stardock’s desktop products), or even available from MS itself (Silverlight, .Net 3.x, etc). As a result, aside being bundled with a new computers, Vista might not give you much. And for some developers could be considered a problem to develop for Vista.

But I think there is more into it then meets the eye.

With public talks about Windows 7 – (1), (2) – Vista might appear for many just as a test release before Windows 7. Microsoft has to have something out after original Vista design/architecture was altered and Apple’s Leopard being out. Let view it as such and let it be.

Being somewhat early into release/marketing cycle, is an announcement of the plans for W7 considered premature?

Having time to discuss a new features, Microsoft allows itself not yet commit to anything, while probing the market with some new ideas.

What is a little different today is when and how we are talking about the next version of Windows.  So, why the change in approach?  We know that when we talk about our plans for the next release of Windows, people take action. As a result, we can significantly impact our partners and our customers if we broadly share information that later changes.  With Windows 7, we’re trying to more carefully plan how we share information with our customers and partners.  This means sharing the right level of information at the right time depending on the needs of the audience.  For instance, several months ago we began privately sharing our preliminary plans for Windows 7 with software and hardware partners who build on the Windows platform.  This gave them an opportunity to give us feedback and gave us the opportunity to incorporate their input into our plans. As the product becomes more complete, we will have the opportunity to share our plans more broadly. Steven Sinofsky, Windows and Windows Live Engineering SVP, talks more about this in his interview with CNET’s Ina Fried.

And you can already hear something like – “what if I do not have touch screen?”, “what real value of the new OS?”

Was Vista a failure? I do not think so. Rather a platform launch. Rough one though…

Windows Vista established a very solid foundation, particularly on subsystems such as graphics, audio, and storage. Windows Server 2008 was built on that foundation and Windows 7 will be as well. Contrary to some speculation, Microsoft is not creating a new kernel for Windows 7. Rather, we are refining the kernel architecture and componentization model introduced in Windows Vista.  While these changes will increase our engineering agility, they will not impact the user experience or reduce application or hardware compatibility. In fact, one of our design goals for Windows 7 is that it will run on the recommended hardware we specified for Windows Vista and that the applications and devices that work with Windows Vista will be compatible with Windows 7.


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