Not got around to upgrading to Windows Vista yet? In that case you might want to delay a bit longer: it looks like the next version, Windows 7, is coming sooner than we thought.

That reaction is exactly what Microsoft is afraid of - and why it has been scrambling today to stamp on the suggestion that unlike Vista, which arrived years late, 7 (codenamed Blackcomb, after a Canadian ski resort) may actually arrive early.

Unforturnately the speculation will not be easy to kill. Bill Gates himself let the cat out of the bag by declaring he was “super-excited” about the next Windows in “the next year or so”. Yesterday, Microsoft said it planned to offer a version of Windows XP until June 2010 or a year after the launch of Windows 7, “whichever date is later” - an apparent indication that a date of June next year had been pencilled in for the launch of the new operating system.

A Microsoft spokesperson says nothing has changed, Windows 7 is still expected to take around three years from the consumer launch of Vista (January 2007) and maybe Gates was referring to the first beta version of the software.

Regardless of this attempt at obfuscation, what seems to be emerging is this: rather than slipping later into 2010, as some had expected, the next Vista is well on track and at least an advanced version of it will be on display in the first half of next year. That won’t help Vista, which is still recovering from all the bad publicity of its first year.

April 4th, 2008 in Software | Permalink