Microsoft jumping the Gun with Windows 7?

When Windows Vista was released three years ago it was heralded as the second coming of operating systems but instead it was met almost universally with scorn. Since then, however, many people have begun to adapt and even accept Vista as a viable upgrade from windows XP. It’s not surprising that Microsoft was eager to be done with bad publicity but what IS surprising is that now instead of trying to enhance Vista they are eagerly moving on with Windows 7 for a release in 2009.

The oddness of the announcement really stems from the fact that Microsoft has been running PR damage recovery ads for the last few months. After spending the time and money to try to recover from the initial backlash of the launch it seems strange that they would abandon their product. Even more alarming is that those have adapted to Vista will soon find themselves with the problem of upgrading once again.

As I have mentioned before I have been running Windows Vista on my PC for two years now. While some performance issues do exists Vista has received more negative publicity then is really warranted. I bring this up to give perspective to what I’ve seen of Windows 7. Having spent some time with the beta version, Windows 7 feels more like a polished Windows Vista then a truly new operating system. Windows 7 is noticeably faster and there have user interface improvements but overall the core components remain the same. To this end the product seems like it should have been released as a Service Pack instead of a full-fledged release. In this way Windows 7 seems more like a publicity stunt: release last year’s model with all the kinks worked out to negate all past negative publicity. Whether this is the case or not it will be interesting to see if Microsoft can learn from their mistakes when Windows 7 is released late next year.

- Richard Keene
IT Computer Support of New York
Design and Optimization Department