Bill Gates says he expects the new version of Windows operating software, code-named Windows 7, to be released “sometime in the next year or so.”
The software giant has been aiming to issue more regular updates of the operating system software that powers the majority of the world’s personal computers. Nevertheless, Gates’ comments suggested that a successor to the Vista program might be released sooner than was generally expected…
He said new versions of Windows would help revolutionize mobile phones and run the desk of the future, which would have a touch surface display allowing users to call up items using their hands.
“Sometime in the next year or so” is knife-edge specific for Microsoft.
Good, now I can tell the boss we don’t need to upgrade anything until the next version of Windows comes out. Thanks Bill!
Of course, the next year or so in MicroSpeak would be ~2011 at best.
Haven’t we discussed already that many XP users, including myself, would just hold off until Win7 SP2?
I can only hope that Microsoft learned something from Vista, but since they didn’t learn anything from ME, well…
Thats it Bill rush the next version right on out the door. Past experience has shown this to be a viable strategy.
Oh, wait …
Sounds like Gates slipped up. I can see it coming out in 2010, but not next year.
The question for me is …do I stick with Windows XP until Windows 7 or would I get seduced by Apple’s OSX before then.
I really want Windows but Vista is not now a good upgrade for me 🙁
I have a better idea: Let’s go straight from XP to Linux!
“In the next year or so”?
What’s he smoking? Has he already conveniently “forgotten” the multiple delays that plagued the crapfest that is Vista? The OS-buying public hasn’t!
Unless he’s outsourced the development to hungry companies in India, I don’t think 7 will be out before 2010, like Somebody_Else says.
new versions of Windows would help revolutionize mobile phones
Mobile phones need a revolution?
The only revolution I want to see is the price of service to drop dramatically and all billing to be flat.
I’d also like blue tooth headsets that don’t echo, call clarity that deserves the word “clarity”, and a switch in the software that allows me to disable every feature not related to making a phone call or checking voice mail, which are the only two things I ever wanted a phone to do.
How with Windows do any of that?
Jesus H Christ, it’s a phone. A phone is a phone is a phone. I need an invisible operating system that makes the phone work. I don’t need a “Mobile Experience”. I just need to call home and find out if we need anything from the store for the BBQ this weekend.
I love XP. It does everything I need. It beats the crap out of Win98 which used to crash all the time. I’ve been running XP for over four years and have never had a system crash. Programs run in their own space and never bring XP down. I’ll stick with it until M$ comes up with something better.
Its official. Even M$ thinks Vista is a flop.
AND…
What do you say to ALL THOSE THAT BOUGHT VISTA??
SUCKER..
What do you say to ALL those PRE-INSTALLED SYSTEM USERS??
STUPID…
What do you say to DELL/HP and the REST of the Corps that INSTALLED VISTA..??
SUE THEM INTO THE GROUND.
PS…
What do you say ABOUT Direct X 11 WHICh will only work on Win 7?? And ALL those DX 10 and 10.1 CARDS???
You figure it out.
Does Bill still work for Microsoft?
I thought he was going to focus on his charity foundation.
Let’s see:
#1. Windows 1.0
#2. Windows 2.0
#3. Windows 3.0, 3.1, 3.11
#4. Windows95
#5. WindowsNT3
#6. Windows98, 98SE
#7. WindowsNT4
#8. WindowsME
#9. Windows2000
#10. WindowsXP
#11. Windows Vista
So Windows7 is actually Windows12?
I smell desperation, I smell fear…
Let’s see, took 7 years from xp to vista. Vista came out a year or so ago and they’re announcing 7 in a year or so. I don’t think they can do it, unless, If they just took 64bit XP polished it up a bit. Still MS’s main problem is they haven’t learned that computer security is to protect the user from the outside, and not the other way around. I mean 90% of Vista’s ‘security improvements’ are there to keep the user from using pirate OS, soft, or multimedia. Talk about a bad case of denial, that’s why people are passing on it, that combined with an overly aggressive marketing strategy. The only thing I find ‘WOW’ about Vista is that it lasted this long.
How does one ship an OS in a year and half? Remember that Microsoft has banks of automated compatibility testing and does tons of user acceptance testing plus there is user testing with the big corporations. How do you manage that in a year? The obvious answer is that you sell the same monkey and give him a different hat. I suspect that “Windows 7” is a marketing ploy to sell a revised version of Vista with a new name and shiny ribbon.
#15–Thomas==you make a valid if not subtle point. Large corporations, like our government, like Microsoft, like the Vista Drivers for Creative, actually do know what they are doing. Consumer dissatisfaction lies in consumers wanting one thing (media free of drm restraints) and corporations want other things (planned obsolescence for example).
So–Win 7 could be a less drm restrictive Vista with greater integration for mobile devices and an optional wi-fi interface to supplement the gui. Essentially, same monkey with a new ribbon as you say.
Im sorry..
the ONLY thing windows has NOT learned is PROPER PROGRAMMING STRUCTURE..
They could save alot of time and effort if they KEPT the OS, Solid, and QUIT letting Anyone place CRAP in win DIR.
Tell Other programs to LEAVE their DLL’s/inf/and such…IN THERE OWN DIR..
I think Bill Gates is confusing the release date of the first beta of Windows 7 with the release date. I believe the first beta of Windows 7 is set for next year.
I think the 2010 time announced previously by Microsoft is more accurate. Actually I believe Microsoft just reconfirmed the 2010 date for Windows 7 yesterday.
Maybe it is time for Bill Gates to retire, He is already starting to get confused.
As to the people saying they will wait for Windows 7 and skip Vista, Good luck with that.
In late 2010 we will probably see it get delivered to manufacturers. Then give it a couple of months to get into official release. Then find out the third party drivers and application support for Windows 7 suck, Then everyone will want Windows 7 SP1 before using it. So it might be a Viable OS by 2012. Then Microsoft will announce Windows 8 and everyone will want to wait for that.
Windows Vista is now becoming a viable operating system. Most of the drivers issues are being solved, Most applications are now upgraded to Vista complient versions. Vista SP1 fixed a lot of the underlying bugs that were cause some grief. So in the next six months to a year will be the ideal time to migrate to Windows Vista with new Hardware installations and continue using the old hardware with Windows XP. Windows Vista is a next generation operating system and using old outdated hardware with it is pointless.
#13, i don’t have the source code to all of those versions – but i can’t see how “7” is derived no matter how much leeway i give the various technologies
Its still just DOS, when do we get a NEW OS? I just bought a Vista machine, I’ll be pissed if a new OS is out in 09.
Gates is blowing hot air, we won’t see another windows until 2011. But he’s making the argument easy to switch to mac.
Don’t worry Linux hippies I haven’t forgotten you, I used to work in IT in a linux environment (CentOS and Redhat). My manager left for Redhat. Tux is on the desktop.
It’s all a matter of marketing,showcasing the OS’es NT (new technology–hehe, not so new today) lineage, just look up the OS version in your system information:
Windows NT 3
Windows NT 4
Windows XP — 5
Windows Vista — 6
Windows 7 — 7
They didn’t have the time to include all the features promised in Vista. We’ll add ’em in later, they promised. After SP1 they seem to be silent on the matter. Vista was a step backward in all ways except eye candy. So, now that Vista is nowhere near what they promised, they plan to rush a new version out the door?
Windows is ungainly and ancient architecture. The time has come to step back and create a new OS designed for modern machines. Drop all the legacy functions. WHo cares if it can play pong? Get rid of the archaic registry system. Keep supporting XP for the next decade to let people fully depreciate their current machines and software but make the OS reflect the state of modern hardware and software.
Prepare for future innovations and let the past slide into history.
i wonder if ms could create 2 separate products; one for business and one for everyone else. it almost seems like while they want to convey the appearance of this – they’re actually more interested in maintaining some kind of momemtum of what’s come before, rather than really innovating
@20: The last Microsoft OS to be based on DOS was Windows ME. Win2K and beyond do not have DOS at their core.
“Gates is blowing hot air, we won’t see another windows until 2011. But he’s making the argument easy to switch to mac.”
Right…because it’s not like Apple releases a new OS every year and a half or so…
20,
its NOT an OS/Dos…
Its a Full programming environment, Wrapped around an interface.
ADD to that, Internal Interfaces, to deal with OTHER interfaces like Java, HTML, and soforth…
AND ALL OF IT, written by???
Then you wonder WHY MY writes there OWN Java, HTML, ACTIVEX, and soforth…
finally!
pj
I can only hope that WIN 7 is a smaller OS using a lot fewer resources. I don’t know anyone who uses 1/10 of anything XP is capable of doing. There is so much waste.
The answer is NOT more cores, or higher frequencies, or gigs of memory. The answer is to stop piling on all the bullshit in the OS.
There is one way Microsoft could get a new OS out the door in that time frame … Microsoft Linux. We are the Borg … you will be assimilated.
“He said new versions of Windows would help revolutionize mobile phones and run the desk of the future, which would have a touch surface display allowing users to call up items using their hands.”
Great! I don’t have a desk with touch screen display, nor any hopes of getting one this decade… what I do have is a Vista operating system which takes 1 min 30 seconds to open Outlook and Word. Instead of designing an operating system for some distant future tech revolution, how about one that will do what I need it to do quickly and with my existing hardware.
I would wager that 90% of people who complain about Vista have never run the operating system. Does Vista have more bloat? Yes it does. Does it matter? Not if you have a newer system. Does Vista have DRM restrictions that slow or bog down your system? Yep. Is there anyway around that? Yep. You mean you can turn that stuff off? Nope, but you can eliminate the DRM ‘effect’ very easily. After that it simply takes up around 50MB of RAM/system resources, no big deal when you have 4GB Duel Channel.
First of the year I decided to build a new system to replace my P4. I already have a few XP/Pro licenses so I thought what the hell I’ll get Vista 64Bit OEM (cheap) and give it a try and see whats up. If it didn’t work out or just plain sucked I could easily slap XP on there and be done with it. Turns out if you think Vista is the new ME then you are sadly living in the past, I remember that turd O/S well and there is no comparison. If you have a decent modern machine, Vista is no better or worse than XP. If your computer sucks well Vista will suck. I put it on an old Celeron 2.0GHz w/512RAM, it installed fine, drivers ok, ran like absolute crap.
I run XP/VISTA/RH/UBUNTU on a variety of machines depending on what I need from that machine. All these O/S’s have their quirks.
Now all the stupid marketing tricks to rollout Vista on sub-par machines and with premature drivers most certainly bit Microsoft in the ass. Good they deserve it. Little hint Microsoft, build a quality finished(!)product, people will buy it – no marketing trick bullshit required.
Oh and btw, nice try with the DRM thing, all my (500+) movies and songs (1000+) I have pirated/payed for/downloaded/ripped or otherwise acquired work perfectly fine on my Vista system, either viewing on the monitor or viewing on my various big screens located through out the house. Of course I don’t use Windows Media Player, but who would use that piece of crap for anything, WMP has sucked since 1998.