Windows 7 is your old bicycle.

David Card on Microsoft's plans for Windows 7.

So, apparently, the 2009-2010 version of Windows will still not have the next-gen file system I was writing about more than 10 years ago -- when "Cairo" was the lead codename -- let alone a microkernel with modules for OS "personalities" and compatibility.

You're gonna fend off Google and cloud computing with a touch screen?? Good luck. I do hope there's a skunkworks Plan B in the labs. No wonder buying Yahoo "isn't strategic."

Also amusing is the Microsoft reaction to Tiger's search capabilities.

[Mr. Dee]

Microsoft is divided into multiple businesses. Servers, Client, Office, Online, Entertainment. Cloud computing and competing against Google would most certainly fall under Online as a part of the Windows Live initiative. Not necessarily a fundamental strategy for the Windows operating system. Please try and understand how Microsoft works before you bash them. Also, what we saw at D6 the other night was only a small preview (or as Steve Ballmer puts it 'snippet'). Microsoft will reveal additional information as the PDC 2008 and WinHEC 2008 conferences approach.

[Macalope]

OK, obviously the first paragraph quoted is about Windows 7 while the second is about other initiatives. And you seem to have more of a problem with Card's words than the Macalope's.

[getwired]

Google doesn't subdivide it's strategies to attack Microsoft... Microsoft is pretty fundamentally out of it if they think touch is the silver bullet that will help them fend off Apple, Google, and the online onslaught that's about to broadside them. I know Microsoft pretty well - and I honestly don't think they get it anymore.

[ripragged]

@Mr. Dee<br /><br />Interesting breakdown of the business strategy. It doesn't answer the grander question, though. Why release a (decidedly not ready) product like Vista to replace a stable product like XP? Then add the strategy of offering a future OS only a year or two out to destabilize the product you're currently trying to sell to people who are happy with the old product. The incentive to move to Vista was minimal to begin with because it sucks. Now, knowing Windows 7 might be the real upgrade, people can easily decide they can wait another year or two for a new Microsoft OS. Please explain how that is NOT monumentally stupid.

[Mr. Dee]

When you say Vista is not ready, what do you mean? Windows Vista was ready the day it RTMed the problem was because of things that happened during development, IHVs and ISVs were hesitant to get device drivers and software ready, actually, they chose to start getting their part ready when Vista RTMed. Its quite clear Vista requires a more powerful system and SP1 improved performance problems. But to say the OS is not ready I can't understand that. As for mentioning Windows 7 now, thats typical. In fact its rather late. Back in June of 2001, 2 months before XP was released, Microsoft mentioned that Longhorn would be the next follow up as an interim release. But the the scope of the project changed and it evolved into a major release. Blackcomb/Vienna (now Windows 7) was also mentioned around the same time as the successor to Longhorn but changes throughout development realigned its priority. The thing many businesses like about Microsoft is road maps. So, news of Windows 7 now is not news at all. I don't see how it will even affect Vista's acceptance in the interim, since most customers will likely upgrade to it or a new PC with it as the need arises. For some persons its hard to hold out until 2010 with a PC from 2001 with a 533 MHz processor and 256 MBs of RAM. I have moved pass a Desktop I got in March 2000 with 98 upgraded to XP Pro, a laptop with XP over the past five years. Upgrading for many persons is just inevitable, whether its XP, Vista or the future 7.

[getwired]

Most CONSUMERS will upgrade when they get a new PC - as most consumers don't have a choice (of course, they can choose to do what I did as a 15 year Windows veteran, and buy a Mac or two, and get rid of my Windows machines). Most businesses are far from satisfied with Vista, and are staving off moving to it - accelerating the importance of Microsoft getting Windows 7 right. Enterprises are far from elated with Vista. In fact as a general trend, they're far more leery of it than they even were of XP.

[tyks]

And a lot are upgrading to Macs at this point. Microsoft releasing such a memory hog OS that had so many problems was stupid. They should have done what Apple did with Copland - scrap it and make their "Windows 7" the flagship. By the time Windows 7 is released, Apple will have a very strong foothold in the CONSUMER market (and probably a little in business, even though IT folks continue to buy Windows to keep themselves in a job).

[ripragged]

@Mr. Dee<br />"The problem was..." Vista wasn't ready. Leopard had a few glitches on day one, but nothing that compared to the problems of Vista. Oddly, you seem to imply that Vista's inability to hit the ground running is everyone else's fault but Microsoft's. To say that Vista is ready but the rest of the world is screwed up is the "everyone's crazy but me" argument so popular in mental hospitals.

[GaryPatterson]

Mr Dee ends with "Upgrading for many persons is just inevitable..." but that's not quite true. It's a choice to stick with Windows, or go to OS X or Linux. Microsoft are turning a lot of people off with Vista, and they've never really managed to dispel a lot of the FUD put about on Vista.<br /><br />I'll end with this: Any manager at Microsoft who considers that customers will always upgrade to another Microsoft product should be sacked immediately because they're clearly incompetent. It's thinking like this that allows crap to be released. The right attitude is that you have to win your customers every damned time, and consider them to be always on the verge of leaving you for the competition. You've got to fight for them and win. Anything less leads to mediocrity.

[onlyauser]

Most valid comment IMHO regarding the consumer and ANY business. I agree 100%. Also, Microsoft seems to be very out of step and fumbling in the dark in the context of your statement. I have ended up making every effort to rid myself of most every Microsoft effort or product because of the exact reasons you point out. It 's not that I wished to leave Microsoft products it that this company made not effort to keep my business from the perspectives of my personal needs and security.

[ripragged]

@ GaryPatterson<br /><br />At this point in Microsoft's game fighting for the heart of the customer is the way back to mediocrity for the Windows franchise.

[GaryPatterson]

@ripragged - can you explain that? <br /><br />I'm not a great fan of Microsoft by any stretch, but I would think that fighting to win customers could only be good for them. I like having a strong competition between OS X and Windows, and that means I want Microsoft to raise the bar on their OS. Vista has been a low point, not because the OS itself is bad but because it's not six years better than XP. They're delivering mediocrity today, so fighting to win customers back through better products seems like a way back into the game to me.

[Sigivald]

Google? Cloud computing?<br /><br />That's just funnier every time someone talks about it.<br /><br />Remember thin clients? It's still funny!

[ripragged]

@GaryPatterson<br />You said that failing to fight for the customer was the path to mediocrity. I'm merely pointing out that at this point mediocrity would be a huge improvement for the Windows franchise.<br /><br />Vista needs a major shot in the arm to achieve mediocrity.<br /><br />Nothing would please me more than to see Microsoft return to mediocrity, and then, maybe someday, innovate something.<br /><br />I'm taking up too much of Mr. Macalope's comment space with my rambling. See if this helps:<br /><br /><a class="jive-link-external" href="http://rip-ragged.com/dross/" target="_newWindow">http://rip-ragged.com/dross/</a><br /><br />The opinions there are ill-formed and utterly unbalanced, but there is a beautiful view of dangling participles.

[Igiveup2]

@ripragged: You shouldn't have posted that link. "Rip Ragged does not adhere to a policy of fact-checking, research, accuracy, or validity of observations." I guess that explains your posts here pretty well. <br /><br />So Andrew Card concluded that no changes to kernel architecture or storage will occur in Windows 7 because they weren't demonstrated at D6? Great logic. At least good enough for Apple fanboys to repeat..

[ripragged]

Did I say something technically wrong? All I meant to say is that Windows Vista is an inferior operating system being shoved down peoples' throats, and that Microsoft will have to make major improvements to the software to bring it up to passably acceptable.<br /><br />If you read around and about the innertubes, you'll find that to be a fair distillation of the popular consensus. I'm not technically savvy enough to discuss kernel architecture, unless you mean that corn on the cob should be boiled exactly nine minutes.

[Igiveup2]

Yes, your posts are full of unsubstantiated conclusions and misinformation. Your own words from your own website say it best. There is no consensus that Vista is an inferior operating system that is being shoved down people's throats. The recent poll on cnet showed a substantial majority of Vista users having no serious problems. Most of the trashing reflects the groupthink of Apple fanboys with their knee-jerk reactions against all things Microsoft. Noisy zealots do not a consensus make.

[tyks]

Obviously cnet isn't made up of diehard Microsoft apologists...