Microsoft is planning to ship its next major version of Windows - known internally as version '7' - within roughly three years, CNET News.com has learned. The company discussed Windows 7 on Thursday at a conference for its field sales force in Orlando, Fla., according to sources close to the company. While the company provided few details, Windows 7, the next client version of the operating system, will be among the steps taken by Microsoft to establish a more predictable release schedule, according to sources. The company plans a more 'iterative' process of information disclosure to business customers and partners, sources said.
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Member since:2005-07-06
"Isn't three years a bit soon to release the next version?"
For businesses with software assurance, it doesn't really matter, and seeing as how they were the most vocal (along with developers) about how long it took to get Vista out the door, this should appease them quite well. This is an example of MS reacting to market pressure, and I personally feel it's a good move on their part. A lot of folks were extremely unhappy about the amount of time between XP SP2 and Vista.
Member since:2005-07-02
Really? My impression was rather that a lot of people were unhappy that, after taking all that time to develop the new OS, many of its most interesting features were dropped for the final release...
Meanwhile, most Windows users around me are not that excited to move to Vista...I have a hard time believing that a sizeable portion of the Windows userbase was indeed impatient about getting the new version. Geeks and power users, sure, but Joe User? That seems unlikely.
Member since:2007-02-22
Here's one possible way
1 year since Vista's release where Windows 7 spent time out of the spotlight in planning 1 year.
The Windows 7 announcement, and 3 years intense development: 4 years total.
1 year extra-long beta for catching bugs, since that program seems to have been proven successful thanks to Vista and Windows Home Server: 5 years total.
Member since:2005-12-31
"Isn't three years a bit soon to release the next version?
NO.
Ok, looking at Microsoft's past actions.
They create Windows 98. Then the next *new* OS afterwards is Windows 98SE.
They develop Windows 2000 followed by Windows XP.
Simply said, Windows 98 & 98SE are very similar. Windows 2000 & XP are very similar. ( 98SE and XP are just improved/updated versions ).
Why did Vista take so long to come out?
Because they were throwing lots & lots of *new* stuff into Vista ( big changes ) and it was getting very complex ( with lots of code to work with ).
Windows 7 is very likely going to be a *polished* ( improved & updated ) version of Vista maybe with a couple of new features, add-ons, fixes and improvements. If they don't go crazy adding stuff to it then they'll be able to come out with next Windows version in 3 years time.
Edited 2007-07-22 19:00
Member since:2006-06-03
I'm not quite so sure. If http://www.levenez.com/windows/history.html#01 is correct then:
They had 2 stable source branches running side-by-side for a long time, the 3.1/9x product, and the OS/2 NT (New Technology) tree.
When the 9x tech finally had too much instability/cruft/old-code to maintain properly, then migrated the NT source over to be more consumer-friendly, and created the XP branch.
I believe that the NT codebase is coming to a similar place as the 9x line at the time of ME. There's just too much old engineering in the works to be efficient.
Vista has lots of shiny, decent features, but there is just too much instability (on some hardware) and odd performance wierdness around for many people to trust the platform. It is reminiscent of the dreaded Word 6.0 days when you had to hit save every 5 minutes.
Unfortunately, they cannot just switch to another branch, as they did with NT (unless they fall-back to modifying Windows Mobile or XBox for desktop use), Singularity seems just too far off at the moment. So they are forced to battle with the NT code until they come up with something better.
This last bit is just my opinion BTW.
Member since:2005-12-28
Yes they where throwing a lot of new stuff into Longhorn, making some very big changes. Then time and Apple brought them under pressure and Longhorn was skipped.
The Vista we know is a 2003 Server base system including a few shiny hacks.
For example the WinFS (Longhorn version) was at first 100% database based, but they never got it to work and it was skipped. Plan B was to make a metadata database driven add-on to the existing NTFS - sort of like what Apple had done. But now the klock was ticking (Or they couldn't get it to work properly) and finally that also was skipped.
Vista and most likely 7 (Vienna) is a transitional release. The strategic main purpose is to migrate people from the Win32 platform and onto the .NET platform, making the underlying operating system somewhat irrelevant. The backward compatibility of Vista is maintained using the technology bought from Connectix, also known as Virtual PC. Running Win32 apps within an VM also boxes them in, seperating them from the rest of the system - removing the security weaknesses of the Win32 framework as number one on the todo list.
After Vienna/7 I believe that MS could skip the NT branch, making an applemove and moving the .NET platform onto something BSD-driven.
Comment : And yes NT used to run on severel other architechtures, for instance the Alpha (You are missed), that for some time was development platform.
Edited 2007-07-24 05:43
Member since:2005-07-06
The problem for Microsoft is that competitors like Linux and MacOS comes in frequent small incremtal upgrades. If Microsoft waits too long new users will be tempted to go with some other platforms than windows.
Other than that, you are probably right most existing windows users are probably quite satisfied with XP or Vista, so Microsoft may have an hard time getting people to upgrade before they have got some return of current investments. It have been that way since the release of win2k. The fact that the quality have gotten a lot better since then doesn't help Microsoft.
Member since:2005-07-06
"The problem for Microsoft is that competitors like Linux and MacOS comes in frequent small incremtal upgrades"
It's not a problem for MS when those small incremental upgrades also come with small incremental breaking changes that cause problems with existing software, which is usually the case (especially with Linux). Normal users don't care about upgrading once a year, especially if that brings the risk of breaking backwards compatibility. Also in the case of OSX, the fact that each of those incremental upgrades costs a hundred bucks or more certainly doesn't work against Microsoft as all of their point releases are free.
Member since:2005-07-06
It's not a problem for MS when those small incremental upgrades also come with small incremental breaking changes that cause problems with existing software, which is usually the case (especially with Linux).
That doesn't help Microsoft.
New users haven't upgraded yet. They will look at the current version of Microsoft windows and compare that to the current versions of its competitors. If the competitors are better at the moment of comparison, people may try them instead and that is something Microsoft want to avoid. Once you have started on one platform you are likely to stick with it.
As for incremental upgrades breaking things, I would say Linux isn't any worse than any other platform in this respect. E.g. Oracle designed to work on FC4 or RHEL4 runs just fine on Fedora 7 or RHEL5, Applixware designed to work on Red Hat 6.0 runs fine on FC5 (I haven't tested on any later versions as OOo is so much better). My old HP ScanJet IIc scanner still works on current RHEL5. On windows it stopped working at win2k.
Member since:
2005-07-02
Isn't three years a bit soon to release the next version? That could lead many people to hang in with WinXP and leapfrog over Vista. To me, five years is a better timeframe for major Windows upgrades (just like game consoles).
Then again, as Almafeta suggested above, they may be saying three years while meaning five years...but why don't they just say five years, then? It's not as if people are eager to switch to a new Windows version while the last one just debuted...