For those of us who are into Microsoft (and however dying a breed we may be there is not really much of an alternative unless we want to move fruitward – to You Know Who…) we have something exciting on the horizon. Windows 7 is coming!
Microsoft has stated that it’ll launch details of the new release exclusively at the PDC2008 Professional Developer’s Conference on 27-30 October in Los Angeles, followed by the WinHEC2008 on 5-7 November in yes, Los Angeles! Looks like a popular holiday destination this year – or maybe not. They tell us they will be launching a super special pre-beta “developer only release” at both shows for those attending, and showing off the new product in “broad in-depth” (whatever that means).
Mighty Microsoft have decided to officially call the new version of Windows “Windows 7”. This was, strangely enough, the in-house codename for the product during development, which is a first for Windows. In the past we’ve seen Windows with catchy numbers (e.g. Windows 3.11), dates (Windows 97), and catchphrases (Windows XP, or the rather esoterically named “Vista”). It seems that Microsoft have finally realised that using a date doesn’t make sense, as there’s not necessarily a new release every year (boy, it took them a while longer than us to work that out).
Mike Nash, Corporate Vice President, Windows Product Management said that “coming up with an all-new “aspirational” name does not do justice to what we are trying to achieve, which is to stay firmly rooted in our aspirations for Windows Vista, while evolving and refining the substantial investments in platform technology in Windows Vista into the next generation of Windows. Simply put, this is the seventh release of Windows, so therefore “Windows 7″ just makes sense.” Yeah right. Like “Vista 2” or “Vistas” isn’t simple. Do you think just maybe they want to lose the Vista name for some inexplicable reason?
Assuming they stick with this nomenclature, however, it should make life a lot simpler in future when we see Windows 8, Windows 9 etc coming out. There’ll only be one choice – upgrade or not – surely? Or will it ever be that simple with Windows?
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