'Choice' was the watchword in the Windows 7 discussion on Wednesday at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, as Microsoft aimed to highlight what it sees as its chief advantage over rival Apple.
"A key part of Windows 7 is to enable a full spectrum of choices," Microsoft senior vice president Steven Sinofsky said at the conference in Los Angeles.
While the new Windows will work on high-end machines with multitouch, it will also work on low-end machines. And, while Vista has largely been absent from the fast-growing netbook category, Windows 7 is intended to work well on such low-end devices, a number of which have been on display at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC).
Among the machines Microsoft put on show was an Eee PC with a 1GB hard drive and a 16GB solid-state drive. The software maker said the netbook could run Windows 7 with "room to spare".
For hardware makers, Microsoft showed off a feature called 'Device Stage' that lets them offer up in one place manuals, links to services, and access to content stored on the device, among other things.
On stage, Microsoft showed a Nokia phone hooked up to Windows 7, automatically making available all of the content on the device.
The company also said it will support a number of additional audio and video formats out of the box, including DivX, H.264 and unprotected AAC.
Windows 7 also has integrated support for sensors, such as light sensors, accelerometers or GPS, or even more exotic kinds of input. For example, Microsoft showed a ThinkPad with a spectrophotometer to help handle colour calibration.
Sinofsky also noted that, even though Microsoft has put a lot of focus on touch, it is not abandoning its Tablet PC work. Chief software architect Ray Ozzie last week told TechFlash that touch can be mainstream, while the Tablet PC was "truly niche" — a description that apparently irked Tablet PC enthusiasts.
Microsoft did not offer new details as to when customers will be able to purchase Windows 7, beyond saying that a feature-complete beta will be available in early 2009.
Sinofsky did mention a "release candidate to RTM phase", suggesting that Microsoft is only planning a single beta.
