Windows 7 - Vista's successor

[#1]

I saw this yesterday but didn't have time to post about it.  The BBC reports how Bill Gates has dropped the biggest hint yet of the release schedule of the successor to Vista, Windows 7. It doesn't seem that long ago since Vista came out does it? Yet the oft-maligned operating system was in fact launched.. at the beginning of 2007. Errrm.. so it hasn't been long after all then. During a Q&A session at a meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank, Gates said that Windows 7 could be released "sometime in the next year or so". Most industry commentators are speculating a 2010 release as being the most likely outcome.

[#2]

I wonder if I'll have even tried using Vista by the time Windows 7 comes out... all the Windows computers I've used in the past year - that is, friends' and university computers - have all been running XP. The nonchalance towards Vista certainly doesn't bode well for future OS upgrades.

[#3]

I cant wait for Windows 7, its either going to be a recovery or death for Microsoft.

[#4]

I don't like Vista really. Although I remember everyone having the same reservations about XP when it first came out and look how much of a good reputation that has now. I think this will be quite interesting.

[#5]

I think the important point for XP is that it's the first consumer OS from Microsoft that actually works! Windows 2000 was excellent too but was marketed as a corporate product and it occasionally had issues running some games. Now that everyone has a decent, stable OS in the form of XP, there just isn't much incentive to upgrade to Vista.

[#6]

If Bill is being as accurate with this prediction as he has been in the past then it will be at least 2 years before we see it!

[#7]

Gates' statement is pure puffery. There is no reason to believe Microsoft can produce a good new OS: they cannot build something from what they have -- as Vista has shown, and it is impossible for anyone to create such a large project from scratch. Probably the only sensible option is to build on BSD like Apple did for MacOSX. Otherwise they can only produce another weak product, leading the company further into decline.