After a lot of anticipation and hype, Windows 7 has now finally arrived and Microsoft is hoping it will restore their reputation after the disaster that Windows Vista turned into. 
Some are understandably a bit nervous as no one knows yet if Windows 7 is going to be all that Microsoft has cracked it up to be, but neither doubts nor the fragile economy has stopped them from rushing out to spend their cash on it.
Hundreds of people queued up outside PC World in London when they opened their doors at Midnight on the 21st October and sales have been steady ever since.
The DSGi group, which includes PC World and the likes of Curry’s and Dixons, reported a massive surge in trade which continued throughout the morning with the most popular version being the Home Premium Family Pack.
“Within an hour we were up 180% on sales,” said a spokesperson.
Microsoft has supposedly taken into account the way that consumers actually use Windows when developing Windows 7 so the idea is that Windows 7 will be more intuitive than previous versions.
Ashley Highfield, Microsoft’s Managing Director and Vice President for Consumer and Online in the UK said that Windows 7 marked “a new dawn in Microsoft’s relationship with the consumer”.
“Windows 7 is much more than a collection of new features. We have listened to what consumers want and they want something that makes their lives easier,” said Mr Highfield.
Not everyone is as optimistic as Microsoft though. Apple has described Windows 7 as “antiquated” and also “complex and expensive” and thinks that consumers could turn to Macs instead of PCs.
“Windows users are really tired of all the headaches that they’ve been getting over the years, starting all the way back from Windows Me to NT to Vista and now Windows 7,” Said Brian Croll, Vice President of Apple’s Mac OS X worldwide product marketing.
“As a result, I think people are looking for something different, and the Mac offers real ease of use, stability and security.”
The biggest hassle for consumers will be upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7. Apparently upgrading from Vista will be much more straightforward. Upgrading from XP will require a clean install.
“We think this is an opportune time for people to take a look at a Mac. We believe we can get even more people moving over” said Croll.
Only time will tell.
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Well there’s a surprise. Apple poo-poo’ing Win7.
“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. “
Amen brother.
I find it ironic that mac speaks of windows being expensive.
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(comment needed to be at least 5 words so I had to say some more
I find this, and especially the apple statements(seeing as Apple is rushing to get bootcamp to support WIN 7as we speak, having already announced it), and commercials quite funny. Either way I have been using windows 7 as my main operating system since the beta, through the RC (almost a year now), and it also replaced Vista 64 bit, and XP Pro during this time. I will also mention that I am a full time online student, through a national (US) university. I also game a bit in my spare time (on the desktop)-(XP pro/Windows 7 32 bit Ultimate) and have had no issues other than having to reinstall my MB’s ATI sound driver’s. Either way I have worked in end user support/installation/warranty tech, for hardware and networks since 1992. So I would say I know a little bit about pc’s, networks, and operating systems (I have been a beta tester for Microsoft since win 95 as well), I really like 7, it reminds me of windows XP when it replaced windows 2000(on the commercial side of things). So it is based on Vista source code, but tweaked with a lot of things added in.
The only choice apple has is to cut mac’s price by 500$, if they decide to go one on one with Microsoft. Windows 7 simply ROCKZ. Now I love bill gates