Whither Windows 7 and its (expected) wake?
A lot may be riding on the release of Microsoft’s newest operating system, Windows 7, which is due in October, not the least of which is an expected rush of advertising to support everything from the software itself, to the computers it will run on to the rival computers it will not run on.
This surge of business is seen coming just as the holiday shopping session gets under way and could help spark the economic turnaround that some suggest will come later this year.
Or maybe not.
According to a survey by ScriptLogic, six in 10 companies plan to skip buying Windows 7. Some will pass on the added cost of the upgrade, while others are concerned about compatibility with existing applications.
Perhaps consumers will be less squemish about Windows 7 than businesses. Then again, neither were exactly thrilled about Microsoft’s last upgrade — Windows Vista….
Keep an eye on:
- McGraw-Hill hires Evercore as bankers in effort sell BusinessWeek (Bloomberg)
- Pandora gets financing (TechCrunch)
- Microsoft’s Bing – so far so good, trafficwise (New York Times)
Don’t skip Vista — please!
Thinking of going straight from your trusted old Windows XP to Microsoft’s new Windows 7 operating system, bypassing the poorly received Vista?
Not so fast, Microsoft warned its corporate customers in a blog today.
“We know some of our customers are considering waiting for Windows 7 instead of deploying Windows Vista today,” says Windows senior product director Gavriella Schuster in the blog. “We want these customers to understand the following considerations, so they are not surprised later on.”
Leapfrogging Vista could mean falling into a hole where applications are no longer supported on XP but not yet supported on Windows 7, she warns.
And it could be a while before Windows 7 is ready for corporate customers. The beta version of the operating system was made available for public download only last month, and Microsoft won’t commit to any firm roll-out date beyond its broad target of early 2010.
That means corporations, which typically take at least 12-18 months to switch to a new operating system, could be looking at a five-year gap between Vista and Windows 7, and even longer for older operating systems.
More FUD from the Evil Empire.
An abject admission of failure on their part, copping to the facts that neither XP, Vista, nor Seven will run applications developed by third parties.
I’ve used linux since WIn98 with much success. Were it not for locked-in hardware vendors making win-drivers, I’d never have any problems at all, but thankfully the Linux community attacks any device with great vigor that tries to lock out Linux. None have succeeded.
I play WoW and Diablo 2 in linux. I use Open Office. My computer goes six months without a reboot, and I’ve never had the two things that come all but packaged with Microsoft products:
Blue Screens & Viruses.
There is NO linux virus.
That fact alone should tell you something about the quality of Microsoft software.
PS, I used to work at MSFT and I’ve seen the code. Don’t hold your breath for Seven to save your day. It’s just more of the same, another upgrade to NT.
Microsoft looks past Vista at Windows 7
Microsoft finally lifted the curtain on Windows 7 to an enthusiastic audience of developers at the company’s Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles.
Here are some details that didn’t make it into our story.
- Touch – It’s probably the most eye-catching new feature. You can use your finger to click on different programs, scroll through documents, flick to and from various Web pages and sift through photos. It’s also multi-touch — so feel free to use both hands.
- HomeGroup – Who likes setting up home networks? This feature finds and connects all Windows 7 computers on your home network. If you have one computer that holds all your music but want to play songs on a separate PC, HomeGroup lets you play music on any computer in your network regardless of whether the music is actually on that machine’s hard drive. It also lets all the computers on the network easily share printers without having to install drivers on each machine.
- New Taskbar – Any open window on the taskbar presents a quick snapshot of what is open. If you hover over those snapshots, it will provide a full screen preview. Also, anything on the taskbar can be moved and “pinned” to specific locations.
(Photo: Reuters/Fred Prouser)
This is a joke. Windows 7 is just service pack 2 for Vista which they’re gonna charge for. Some GUI has changed, but the barebone of it is Vista with some needed tweaks.
Ben – iPod and iPhone like other sheep? Ever opened your eyes to see that Windows is the most used OS in the world? If you want to be “different” use Ubuntu or some other linux OS.
Yes, Vista sucked, most Windows O/S’s have sucked. But, even though there are much more stable O/S’s out there such as Fedora you are missing the most important factor.
Most people im sure that buy windows are gamers. Very few main release games will run on anything but Windows. So I dont think they will go the same way as Chrysler. There are too many gamers in the world that need this O/S to feed thier habit.
Unless of course all the PC gamers move over to consoles….BWahahahahahahahah, sorry lost my mind for a second there.