At Microsoft's financial analysts meeting on Thursday, Windows unit head Bill Veghte said that Windows 7 development remains on track.
The company has officially said Windows 7 will ship by January 2010, but top executives have also said on occasion that it will ship by the end of 2009.
"The product is tracking very, very well," Veghte said. "We are committed and looking good, relative to our commitment — [shipping Windows 7] three years from general availability of Windows Vista."
Microsoft has released few details on the product, assuring customers, however, that it would be making substantial architectural changes and that Windows 7 will have a new multitouch user interface.
Veghte also discussed Windows Vista.
Veghte showcased the 'Mojave' marketing project, in which Vista sceptics reacted favourably when shown the operating system presented under the guise of being a new version of Windows, code-named Mojave.
Veghte said that not only are customers buying the operating system but more are liking it, pointing to recent internal figures showing that 89 percent of users said they were 'satisfied' or 'very satisfied' with the product. Some 83 percent said they would recommend Vista to a friend or family member, Veghte said.
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He also demonstrated Internet Explorer 8, saying that it would be released in final form later this year. An early beta was shown off at the Mix 08 trade show in the spring.
In the closing stages of the meeting, when asked what Windows 7 would look like, chief executive Steve Ballmer declined to offer any new details, saying that to do so would be a "no-win" situation.
"It's going to look great. It's going to be quite compatible," he said, meeting with some laughter. "If I wanted to start selling Windows 7 today, we'd start selling Windows 7 today. Then you'd complain."
Ballmer reiterated that Windows 7 is designed to avoid making big changes. "The design point is compatible from the get-go in large measure," he said.
Talkback
Forgive the South Park analogy but this is pure marketing spin. I obviously wouldn't go as far as saying that he's lying. Of course not.
To be fair to MS they have a relatively good track record of pulling back from the brink of disaster - Windows ME -> Windows 2000 etc.
But honestly, does Ballmer really believe that people are satisfied with what they get from MS? The truth is most people don't know any better. MS's business model relies on consumer ignorance.
Fortunately evidence also suggests that when people are introduced to viable alternatives - Firefox, OpenOffice, LAMP, Eclipse etc. they adopt them in their droves.
To be smart they need to have something built into 7 that will require you to upgrade from vista.
The only thing that seems to be real in all the BS floating about is the fact that there is ANOTHER version coming. Yeah, whoopee. They haven't really made exPee secure enough to keep it from getting compromised. They continue to issue security patches for exPee AND winista. So they want all of us to go pay even more money for the NEXT BIG THING in operating systems. Time to derail the marketing train.
We hear these trial balloons about Winseven being "modular", smaller, quicker, faster etc. Then we hear that it will be based completely on wista code, oh joy. All that I hear and read about is BS the marketing toads at m$ are deliberately leaking to test out what the "public" thinks and wants in windowseven.
I call for a total moratorium on all media outlets on the subject of windozeseven. Do not play into the hands of the marketing wizards at ms$. This whole leaking miasma is nothing more then the groundlaying for the next big marketing putsch from Redmond. It is as calculating and deliberate as it possibly can be. And if the media writers and reporters would just SHUTUP about indowseven vaporware then we'd see what ms$ would really be willing to do to make an operating system that would actually work the way it ought to.
Right now all the hits wndws2+5 generates on Google and other search engines are like counting coup, little pips that reinforce the marketing people's goals*. All of the reporters that repeat what they hear from other reporters, a perfect viral campaign, doesn't cost the gorilla a dime in advertising dollars.
You website & news outlet reporter guys want more money? Stop talking and writing about you-know-what and you'll see the advertising dollars flow more freely from Washington state. If they can't get it free, they'll have to pay for it! Think about it.
* That's 785 MILLION! as of 3 minutes ago. All for something that DOESN'T EVEN EXIST YET!
"call for a total moratorium on all media outlets on the subject of windozeseven"
I am with you on that one!!