Microsoft’s goals for Windows 7 revealed, but you won’t touch it until 2010
By Triston McIntyre
There’s no way around it: the vast majority of consumers and businesses are in a full-on funk as to what to do with Windows. Do they stick with the tried and true Windows XP, grudgingly adopt Vista with the knowledge that Windows 7 might be no better, or play the waiting game for Microsoft’s “apology” OS, Windows 7, hits the market? A Microsoft memo grants these insights: Windows 7 will probably be the embodiment of what Microsoft intended to do with Vista and more, but don’t hold your breath, because you’ll be waiting for Windows 7 until 2010.
Though ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley isn’t my favorite web personality (as older Blorge readers will doubtless know), her recent post in promotion of her book has some really fantastic insights as to what exactly Microsoft intends to do with Windows 7. An internal Microsoft memo detailing plans for “Windows Live Wave 3″ which circulated August 2007 contains Microsoft’s plans for both the future of Live and goals for Windows 7.
Though the above link contains the full contents of the memo, here’s the skinny on what Microsoft intends for both Windows Live and Windows 7:
Windows Live -
- Easy login and setup for current Windows users, especially Vista users. Microsoft wants users to be able to login and setup their Live accounts by entering only usernames and passwords.
- Microsoft wants Windows Live to drive traffic to different locations within the Microsoft network (i.e. Live will send you to MSN, Live Search, and advertisers that Microsoft is fond of).
- Users of Windows Mobile will get an enhanced Live experience, which will involve a better connectivity with PCs, increased functionality of Live IDs on mobile devices, enhanced and improved mobile advertising, and an overall boost in Windows Mobile performance by working more closely with phone manufacturers.
- Just like every other company, Microsoft wants Live to be a social platform and aggregator for sharing and communication with friends and family. Microsoft intends to make Live a very social-oriented environment (which, if done properly, will push users to adopt Live).
Windows 7 -
- Microsoft is developing Windows 7 so the interface “pops” and really strikes users as visually appealing (by improving upon the look and performance of the “glass” in Vista.)
- Windows 7 will include “signature elements, which the memo lists as, “gestures, ribbon, or other” that will be included in the “theme” of the operating system.
- Microsoft is looking into integrating a better system of window management
- Windows 7 will be geared towards implementing high-DPI support
- Microsoft intends to improve and streamline family settings and desktop security
- Obviously, Microsoft wants those “gestures, ribbons, or other” thematic elements to integrate seamlessly with Windows Live, and vice versa.
Hopefully the more disturbing notes in the memo about improving and integrating advertising across the Windows platform as well as on mobile devices will take a back seat to improving overall performance and refining the visual appeal of Windows 7, Windows Mobile, and Windows Live (Wave 3).
Foley notes that Microsoft does not intend to release Windows 7 until 2010. That means two things. First, you’d better be very happy with XP or willing to adopt Vista, because patience will doubtless be the name of the game with Windows 7. Second, it appears that Microsoft doesn’t intend Windows 7 to be the quick coverup of Vista that many think it will be, much like XP being released quickly after the debacle that was Windows ME.
On a positive note, all the things noted in the memo do seem to be the things Microsoft needs to focus on for Windows 7 that many users have problems with currently on Vista. As news leaks out about Vista, keep your browsers tuned to Blorge for the latest on Microsoft’s continued plan for world domination.
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Read more entries by Triston McIntyre.
May 18th, 2008
Who cares, by 2010 even less people will be using Windows. It might be 5 % less , 10 % less or even 2 % less.
There are other options now.
Your title should be changed to
“Microsoft hopes you use Windows -7 …if its released in 2010″
May 19th, 2008
“Microsoft hopes you use Windows -7 …if its released in 2010?
owesome
June 5th, 2008
You’re wrong Triston. There may be some users who are ‘in a funk … as to … Windows’, but anyone who has studied the vista slow motion tech. wreck knows it isn’t a majority, let alone a ‘vast majority’. Many are choosing to sit pat with XP, and are quite sanguine about it. A good many businesses are changing over to Linux, as are many consumers (this was already a trend; vista has simply accelerated it). OSX, too, is a clear beneficiary of the latest-and-greatest Microsoft debacle. The trickle away from vendor lock-in, enforced upgrades and pathetic software is turning into a stampede - just look, the dust is all around you, for example:
1) One of my colleagues at work told me “I bought a PC with vista - I have re-installed twice, and I’m still not happy; I’m going to return the PC to the store”. I gave him a Linux DVD (Fedora), and he installed the OS without any trouble - everything works, and the only additional step he had to perform was to download the relevant Linux printer driver from the web, and install same - which he did without any assistance at all. The system is *very* fast, and he won’t be bothered by virii.
2) I am working on a project and have a number PCs that were shipped with vista, but when the project is finished, vista will not be running on even one of them. What will they be running? A mix of Linux and XP, of course.
So the question that arises is this: how many times are instances such as the above being repeated around the world each day? From the anecdotal evidence, the answer is ‘very, very often’. Microsoft management can live in a fantasy land and talk of ‘vista numbers shipped’, but where I live, in the real world, Microsoft is considered not just a bad joke, but an old one as well.
The conclusion of the matter, then, is this: that Microsoft have made themselves largely irrelevant, and that no one with any sense cares much about them or about anything they do, much less gets into a funk over such trivia. It is arrant nonsense to suggest otherwise.