Gates and Ballmer to show a little Windows 7 skin at D6
The sixth version of the D: All Things Digital conference will begin Tuesday night with Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer onstage. The two legends of Microsoft will offer the first public peek at Windows 7, although Ballmer told me they would only show a little bit of the user interface.
It will be a very early "positioning" peek given that Windows 7 isn't due until the beginning of 2010. As CNET News.com's Ina Fried reported from her interview with Window chief Steven Sinofsky, Windows 7 is not a new kernel. Ballmer said that doing too much with the Windows kernel in Vista has been a source of incompatibilities and displeasure among users, and Microsoft wants to avoid that kind of problem.
Sinofsky described the Windows 7 kernel evolution as follows in the interview:
We're very clear that drivers and software that work on Windows Vista are going to work really well on Windows 7; in fact, they'll work the same. We're going to not introduce additional compatibilities, particularly in the driver model. Windows Vista was about improving those things. We are going to build on the success and the strength of the Windows Server 2008 kernel, and that has all of this work that you've been talking about. The key there is that the kernel in Windows Server '08 is an evolution of the kernel in Windows Vista, and then Windows 7 will be a further evolution of that kernel as well.
CrunchGear has published some screen shots of what appears to be an embryonic Windows 7. A Microsoft spokesperson has said that the screens are either very old versions of the new operating system or fake.
The speakers at D6 also include Jeff Bezos, Michael Dell, Mark Zuckerberg, Barry Diller, Howard Stringer, Jeff Bewkes, and Jerry Yang, among others. However, don't expect a group hug between Ballmer and Yang, who may be in the audience tonight for the Gates-Ballmer show.
Click here for full coverage of the D: All Things Digital conference.
Dan Farber is editor in chief of CBS Interactive News, which includes CBSNews.com and CNET News. He has more than 25 years of experience as an editor and journalist covering technology. E-mail Dan.
I personally believe you won?t see a thing at D6 about Windows 7. Walt Mossberg is good at persuading Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and Steve Jobs, but certainly not Steven Sinofsky. We must remember the ultimate (no pun intended) aim of the Windows 7 project so far is, under promise and over deliver. I continue to believe we will not see Windows 7 until PDC 2008/WinHEC 2008. Somehow Steve wants to keep this one close to the vest.
Other reasons to consider, show it now what does this say about Vista, that Microsoft has lost faith in the product and admitted defeat? Also, Windows Vista was just released world wide a year and a half, Windows 7 won?t be here until at least early 2010. Why would they want to jump the gun so early and start shooting themselves in the foot like they did with transparency of the Longhorn project?
The most likely Windows related revealing at D6 is Windows Live wave 3. The rumors have said that WL3 will have close ties to the next release of Windows and with more of the built in Vista apps like Photo Gallery, Mail taking on the Live moniker, we will most likely see something related to this. But don?t expect to see anything UI specific if they do indeed run something on a Win7 build at D6.
He said quite clearly:
"although Ballmer told me they would only show a little bit of the user interface."
"We're very clear that drivers and software that work on Windows Vista are going to work really well on Windows 7; in fact, they'll work the same."
"We're going to not introduce additional compatibilities, particularly in the driver model. "
Doesn't sound very revolutionary. Show me some drastic performance increases over Vista, and that will get my attention.
1. Fix network copies (not patch but FIX) should be at least as fast as XP
for large file copies and groups of many files.
2. Fix direct copies - should be able to copy files locally as fast as XP -
(once again for people who keep saying MS fixed that, do some benchmarks -
improving is not the same as fixing.
3. Always make what I want to do priority number one - you can adjust
performance for background vs. programs etc but it still seems preoccupied -
don't tell give a lame excuse like this app opened slowly or files copy
slowly because vista does so much in the background - unless it is finding a
cure for cancer in the background - what I want it to do is more important
and that should be done with all due speed.
4. Make Vista take advantage of new hardware - not require it. Since XP many
nice new things have hit the market - faster processors, more 64 bit apps,
core 2 processors, great new video cards. Instead of leveraging the new
design in hardware, Vista requires it just to run as fast as XP on old
equipment - poor design. Vista should identify core 2 processors and install
a version of Vista with better parallel processing code - so it runs even
faster than a version of vista designed for a single core.
5. Examine all the Vista code for efficiency. Instead of heaping more code
on top of the old XP code for certain tasks and calling it Vista - examine
the code - make it more efficient. I'm not really a developer but my IT
staff told me I would need a T3 to transfer the data in time for compiling
so that the completed data reports could be ready for 5 AM order
distribution - I came up with the crazy idea of just compressing the data
before transmission and adding a decompress before compilation. Saved my
company a fortune and it really didn't take any fancy code - just rethinking
the way you do things. Don't require 2 GIGs of ram and a super processor if
the code can be leaner and more efficient. I can live with the additional
memory more so than constant processor utilization to sit idle.
6. Since MS is unlikely to fix Vista even with SP2, give a discount on
Windows 7 to anyone with a valid license for Vista - it is the least MS can
do for the victims. (if you read my other posts you'll know that Vista
doesn't have to be slow as Server 2008 based on Vista SP1 is quite a bit
faster than Vista SP).
7. Try telling the truth a bit more in the future. People immediately told
MS and posted that Vista was SLOW. MS denied it -told users it was their
firewall, antivirus or drivers that were the problem - are you telling me MS
can't afford a couple of PCs to run comparisons of Vista vs. XP?
8. Apologize as though your relationship depended on it. If any guy treated
his woman like MS treats their customers you can be pretty sure she'd be
gone. MS should stop trying to FORCE Vista on us - Veni, Vidi, ItSucksi. If
your clients don't want Vista don't make them get it. You can sell them XP -
they actually want it, and it isn't as if you have to do a lot of R&D on XP
it is a completed product. Can you imagine how thrilled car manufacturers
would be if people wanted to buy their 6 year old designs still - that is
some serious cost savings. Ballmer claimed he would listen if clients said
they wanted XP - what part of 200,000 petitions, a class action suit,
industry news reports, IT lack of acceptance, general buzz is escaping your
notice? And what the heck is with MS on a decision - for about 3 weeks every
other day was a different thing on the web - MS is extending XP sales,
Ballmer says no, Bill says yes, MS sources say.
9. Prevent Ballmer from doing any more public speaking. You might as well
ask Charles Manson to be your spokes person - it is now difficult to
overlook Ballmer's false claims of the past, his sidestepping of questions
and take anything he says as the truth. Bill was very clever and strategic.
Ballmer seems like a manipulative bully. However even the robber barons of
days gone by realized the tighter you squeeze, the more that slips from your
grasp.
10. DRM - how does that help the end user? Even if it isn't the source of
the incredibly bad performance of Vista - how is it helping the client? If
it has the potential to help us - give us a choice or running it or not -
make it a service or application. Did you ask for it in features you'd like
to see in the next OS from MS? I know I didn't - pretty sure priority for me
was FAST - they missed that by a long shot.
Suggestion on Windows 7 - so you aren't doing a what can we do to improve
the image after the fact -
1. LISTEN when someone says it is slow- compare it to XP (not Vista). I'm
fine with it using more memory than XP but it better not consume one iota
more processing power and it dang well better not thrash my drive.
2. TEST - don't just test on 8 Core 4 GHz liquid cooled PCs with 16
terabytes of RAM, test it on what most companies have - 3 GHz P4's with 1 or
2 GIGs of RAM. If it isn't faster than XP then you did something wrong. Sure
you added more features but you should have been able to make it more
efficient. Can you imagine if car manufacturers said - I added new features
to the car this year so it requires twice as much gas and 94 Octane. If you
think that is bad wait until next year's car. It gets 1mpg and requires jet
fuel - but only goes 60mph just like your old car.
3. Right now the only thing people seem to think about for a 64bit
OS is getting more than 4 GIGs of memory. In theory a 64 bit OS could
perform significantly better than a 32 bit OS even if each is only using 2 GIGs of memory (but we don't really see that, do we?)
Just about all processors for PCs or servers these days are 64bit so I'm
kind of surprised there isn't more effort being made by MS to make 64bit OS
more advantageous. Since they aren't making much effort neither is nVidia
or AMD.
In addition to performance being job number one - some features
(not dazzle but actual functional features would be nice) I like the way
this fake demo shows functionality that I rely on third party
tools to give me - e.g. wsftp pro, treesize pro, etc.
http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2008/05/13/video-claims-to-demo-breathtaking-windows-7-features
I would like to coin a new term to commemorate this phenomenon at Microsoft: Corporate Incest.
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by osprey59
May 30, 2008 12:02 PM PDT
- Oh my gosh! Microsoft is "borrowing" the user interface from the OLPC. No kidding
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(14 Comments)check it out!!!