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Future Holds Large Updates Instead of Stand-Alone Windows Releases
jones_supa writes: Jerry Nixon, a Microsoft developer evangelist, said at the Ignite conference in Chicago that Windows 10 "is the last version of Windows, so we're always working on Windows 10." Saying that is only half true. In fact, Microsoft will start working on large updates instead of stand-alone Windows releases, so the company would switch from a model that previously brought us new versions of Windows every three years, to a simpler one that's likely to bring big updates every two months. The company will also change the naming system for Windows, so instead of Windows $(version), the new operating system would be simply called Windows.
My guess is businesses will continue to use WSUS to manage the rollout and testing of updates, without the hassle of major version updates.
It's not really any different from what happens with regular updates now, except some of them will add new features, like Service Pack's currently do.
Smaller updates has got to be better than major version updates, otherwise there wouldn't be millions of Windows XP machines still out there.
Sounds like a much better option than what has been done in the past.
Considering some stuff in use where I work which will not even run in Win8 yet I suppose it's a matter of only patching up to two or three years behind the current date. Yes that is stupid but that's the speed (or lack thereof) of development with some software.
This is exactly right. Microsoft is sick and tired of customers resisting their latest shiny upgrade, especially when they do so successfully, as with Vista and 8. Keeping the actual version a secret might cause enough confusion to blunt dissent (and damn the negative side effects).
Remember when Mozilla tried to remove FF's version number from the About Box as a prelude the wacky wapid release schedule?