Microsoft Confirms Windows 7 for 2010

Microsoft has confirmed that Windows 7 is right on track for release in 2010. Concomitantly with the leaked details associated with Windows 7 Milestone 1 dropped by the Redmond company to select partners in January 2008, a potential timetable for the availability of the successor of Windows Vista was also made public. According to the leaked information on the next iteration of the Windows platform, having just reached M1, the final version of Windows 7 was to be wrapped up the end of 2009.
Officially, the Redmond company has only been saying that

Windows 7 development would take an estimated three-year timeframe. However, Microsoft always failed to specify the moment when the three-year timeframe started. The debut of Windows 7 development was indeed connected with the release of Windows Vista, but this aspect only contributed to the confusion because the latest Windows client was launched to businesses in November 2006 and to the general public in January 2007. So in this context, the finalization of Windows 7 could just as easily be aimed for the end of 2009, as well as 2010.

source

This is sure to cause a new wave of negative commentary from the Linux fanboys, but I feel this could be positive. While I haven't had any issues with Vista, many people have felt that it is simply not worth the upgrade. Sure, the user interface is pretty, but, apparently, many have struggled with both hardware and software incompatibilities.
I am not even going to jump on the bandwagon, and comment about the hardware and software incompatibilities experienced when attempting to run Linux on most platforms. Of course, an attractive GUI alone does not make for a user friendly operating system, but one must also remember that every user has different requirements from their platform, whether it be purely to run business applications or to run high-end graphics applications.
I am also not going to delude myself and say Vista is flawless. It is very memory hungry and, on the surface, does not provide more functionality than XP. Personally, I have never been a huge fan of desktop operating systems, so I won't call myself an expert in the field at all. In fact, I have been approaching desktop operating systems like any user would. And, in that light, I have not found Vista to be more stable than XP either.

But, even if just for the improved search functionality, I would happily recommend it to my family and friends.

So, I am looking forward to see if Microsoft has learnt, again, from recent mistakes in this space, or if their reign as desktop kings may finally be over. I just hope that, should the latter be true, a worthy heir may appear.

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