This spring, as the technology industry raised ever-louder complaints about Windows Vista, Bill Gates amped up expectations for the next version of the operating system, referred to simply as Windows 7. Speaking in Miami in April, the Microsoft chairman said, “Sometime in the next year or so we will have a new version,” and then went on to extol the virtues of Windows 7, including “the ability to be lower-power, take less memory, be more efficient, and have lots more connections.”
Gates talked about Windows 7 as being a much-improved platform for gaming, connecting to mobile devices, interacting with the Internet and synchronizing files between computers. All that led to speculation that businesses could sit out Vista — and wait until the release of Windows 7.
While it’s still not clear what Gates meant by his “next year” comment, Windows chief Steven Sinofsky told CNET that the release is scheduled for January 2010, putting the new version on a three-year development track, compared to the six years it took to release Vista.
Asked directly about Gates’ comments, Sinofsky refused to bite, simply reiterating the 2010 time frame: “We’ve been very clear, and will continue to say, that the next release of Windows, Windows 7, is about three years after the general availability of Windows Vista, and we’re committed to that, and we’ve signed up publicly to do that.”
While Microsoft has traditionally talked up Windows versions far before their actual release, the Windows group has been far quieter under Sinofsky’s rule than under predecessor Jim Allchin. That’s not unrelated to the experience with Windows, he said.
“The reactions that we’ve had to some of the lessons learned in Windows Vista are really playing into our strategy of getting together a great plan for Windows 7, and working with all the partners in…