Next Version of Windows? Call it '7'

CNet has the news that Microsoft is currently aiming to release the next version of the Windows operating system in about three years. Previously known as Vienna, the OS is now simply known internally as '7'. After achieving a quality product, the article states, Microsoft's big goal with 7 is to recapture a regular release schedule for their operating system product. From the article: "Like Vista, Windows 7 will ship in consumer and business versions, and in 32-bit and 64-bit versions. The company also confirmed that it is considering a subscription model to complement Windows, but did not provide specifics or a time frame. Next up on Microsoft's agenda is Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista, which is expected before year's end. The discussion of Windows' future isn't surprising, given that Microsoft has been criticized by business customers for delays related to Vista. Many business customers pay for Microsoft's software under a license agreement called Software Assurance."

Comments

Re:It's just a version number

[KarmaMB84]

Erm no..

Windows NT4 = 4.0
Windows 2000 = 5.0
Windows XP = 5.1
Windows 2003/Windows XP x64 = 5.2
Windows Vista = 6.0

Re:Didn't we just leave this party?

[Vellmont]

and it will be wash rinse and repeat as people actually see it and realize it is Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows XP, Windows Vista


So it'll be progressively better operating systems (with the possible exclusion of XP over 2000 IMO) that aren't "perfect"? That sounds fine to me.

If your metric in measuring any product is if it lives up to the marketing departments hype, then ALL products are miserable failures in that regard. We all know products never live up to the hype, so I don't quite understand the criticism here.

Of course that's not to say I'm defending everything Microsoft has done, far from it. The problem I have with this announcement is the continued long lag times between releases. Vista wasn't originally planned at 5 years, but more like 2 or 3 years. Microsoft SAYS they've changed as far as release schedules go, but it sounds like same-old-same-old to me.

IMO software develops best with a mix of frequent releases of incremental change, and major releases that re-architect everything. Microsoft has done the major architectural changes on a regular basis, but has failed to produce very many good incremental releases.

For instance, Windows 95 was a pretty good product, while Windows 98 wasn't really much more than adding USB support. ME was of course utter crap. 2000 was the best product I've seen from Microsoft (and the best major release they've done). XP was useless IMO and added little to nothing to the OS. Vista is the buggiest Microsoft OS I've run so far, and doesn't live up to many of the claims (less reboots my ass). I _really_ like the menu search feature though, but wish the sleep feature worked a lot better (extremely buggy in my experience). Despite this I won't be going back to Windows 2000, though I might just go Ubuntu on my workstation. That would make me Microsoft free for the first time in 12 years. Everything else including my work machine is some variant of Linux.

Subscription models... let me tell you about Avaya

[lanner]

I work for a mid-sized business; four locations with about 500 employees.

We use Avaya (formerly known as lucent, formerly known as AT&T) phone systems. They are truly awesome -- in a not-good-at-all way. I am the primary administrator (UNIX background, not old-fart-telecom background).

So first we bought them, paying thousands and thousands of dollars, but now we have to RENT them too. You see, you pay a maintenance fee every month that works out to something like $8,000. If we stop paying, it's Avaya's policy that they will dial into our phone systems and cripple them so that we can't use about half of the command set. No, I'm not kidding -- they've done it to us by mistake and they are being sued over it in other states.

What do we get out of it? Not much. If some of our server hardware breaks, then Avaya will replace it, but Avaya won't assist with programming unless we pay them something like $80/hour for assistance. Given that a 24-port digital line card costs as little as $3K from authorized resellers, and we've never had one break, we would be much better off just hording our cash and buying a couple of spare cards and parts.

Unfortunately, Avaya also has a tight control over their supplier market. They have "authorized resellers" and then the SCARY "GRAY MARKET" oooooohhhhh BE SCARED!!! It's also known as eBay, where part prices are roughly 1/3rd of the cheapest Avaya authorized-monopolistic reseller.

Our sales person reminds me of a used auto salesmen.

Subscription services usually suck when it comes to software. Be warned.

Re:History lesson

[WK2]

Recall that there were versions of Windows prior to Windows 3.1, the first clue to which should have been the version number.

It's funny that you mention that. There were no NT versions prior to Windows NT 3.1. They started with 3.1 because people justly fear 1.0 versions.