Windows Vista users salvation may be at hand.  If you can’t wait to dump Vista for something better you can either go back to XP or stick with it until Microsoft unleashes Windows 7.  Bill Gates seems to believe that Windows 7 is closer than any of us mere mortals realize saying that it, “could come within the next year” - far earlier than anyone has predicted.

Cnet reports that while he was responding to a question about Vista while speaking to the Inter-American Development Bank he said,

“Sometime in the next year or so we will have a new version.”

That should raise some eyebrows.  It has been previously reported that Microsoft could have Windows 7 out by late 2009 but other reports pointed to a middle 2010 or early 2011 release.  The Chairman of Microsoft is also very excited about Windows 7 because it will do things in lots of ways.  Great.  Wasn’t Vista supposed to do the same thing?

It’s not clear if Gates was referring to early development versions of Windows 7, a public beta release or simply that Windows 7 would be ready to ship in final form very early than from what was previously thought.

It is known that Microsoft did wish to ship the next version of Windows within three years after Vista’s release, which took five years to get out on the market.  Five years, some new code, some old code and just look at what we got.  That’s the best Microsoft could do.  I can’t wait to see what it will have done with three years or less.

Windows XP did get a reprieve of sorts and will have an extended life on a “limited number of specialized systems” after the June 30 cut-off date.

Things aren’t looking so good for Windows 7, the MinWin kernel isn’t even going to be part of it and it may never have been.  That wouldn’t have been the first time Microsoft has overtalked features of an operating system or removed, cut and trimmed features before release and it most certainly won’t be the last.

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Related:

Microsoft says Gates misspoke about Windows 7, still slated for 2010

Microsoft says upgrade to Vista because Windows 7 is pretty much the same

Gates reveals Vista is far less popular than Microsoft would like

Windows 7 bares it all at D6 conference

Bill Gates sees end of ‘device categories’ as PCs, phones merge

Entry was posted on Saturday, April 5th, 2008 at 1:25 pm under Microsoft, Vista, windows 7.  Print This Post

Read more entries by Jonathan Schlaffer.