Windows 7 by end of 2009

[Bill Andad]

According to reports it looks possible that the next big upgrade to the Windows OS, the fabled Windows 7, could arrive much earlier than expected. Within the next 12 months even. And who is responsible for making this prediction? None other than Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates himself, apparently.

If this is true then it means the development schedules that have been bandied about up to now have undergone a radical rethink.

The News.com article suggests that Gates responded to a question about Vista asked at a speech to the Inter-American development Bank and is quoted as saying "Sometime in the next year or so we will have a new version" and went on to refer to Windows 7 by adding "I'm super-enthused about what it will do in lots of ways."

Don't get too excited though, because the same story carries word that just 24 hours before a Microsoft representative told CNET that it expected to ship the Vista successor about three years on from the Vista debut in January 2007. Do the math, either Microsoft has got the dates wrong or Gates slipped up. My guess is on the latter.

[jbennet]

three years on from the Vista debut in January 2007 = end of 2009

so the dates arent wrong - also rtm dates are not = retail dates

windows 7 should be good. Should hopefully take into account all the lessons learnt from
vista and build on the solid codebase of vista and server 2008.

[happygeek]

I would have looked at it from Jan 2007 plus 3 years equals Jan 2010, within 12 months of April 2008 equals before April 2009.

So the dates are wrong, by some 9 months - or put another way, nearly a year

[scru]

I try to make myself not to care when the next Windows comes around. Sometimes I slap myself and have the revelation that it's really *not* a big deal...

On my better days I code in python and say random things.

[jbennet]

no

vista went *retail* in 2007, it was RTM on November 8, 2006 and available to volume licencing customers etc... on November 30th 2006

I try to make myself not to care when the next Windows comes around. Sometimes I slap myself and have the revelation that it's really *not* a big deal...

I agree. Im only just moving off NT4 and 2000 and onto XP Pro/Server 2003