Microsoft's development cycles often stretch beyond initial estimates

 

Microsoft boss Bill Gates has dropped a hint about the next version of Windows.

 

He said Windows 7 could be released "sometime in the next year or so" during a Q&A session at a meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank.

 

After the event a Microsoft spokeswoman said the new version was scheduled for 2010 - three years after the January 2007 release of Vista for consumers.

 

But industry experts warned that Microsoft's estimates about delivery dates have often proved optimistic.

 

Long wait

 

Mr Gates made his comments in response to a question from the audience gathered to hear him talk about corporate philanthropy during IADB's annual meeting.

 

Said Mr Gates: "That'll be sometime in the next year or so that we'll have a new version."

 

He added: "I'm super-enthused about what it will do in lots of ways." However, Mr Gates did not detail what changes or novel features are being lined up to appear in Windows 7.

 

Microsoft has started the developer program for Windows 7 and there are reports that a test version, of it, called Milestone 1, have been given to some of the software giant's biggest customers.

 

Afterwards a spokesperson for the company said Mr Gates was talking about pre-release versions of Windows and not the finished product.

 

In an analysis of the development history of Windows XP and Vista, news site Ars Technica said that both took at least a year to get from final test version to the one that went on sale.

 

"We're likely closer to two years away from a release, not one," wrote Ken Fisher from Ars Technica.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7334123.stm

And no doubt there are people at microsoft working on Vista's successor's successor.

 

Like some people at Mozilla working on Firefox 4 even though Firefox 3 is still in beta stage

haha

 

hahaha nice..

My god I hate vista!!!

This "successor" has been in testing since before vista was released!!! It was meant to be released BEFORE vista was even considered being released!! Gah stupid microsoft annoys me anyway

Vista SP1 is the first proper version of Vista.

God I hope these are fake

http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/05/27/windows-7-screen-grabs-look-better-than-they-sound/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWaLxFIVX1s

Vista is the best reason to buy a Mac.

I don't get why some people hate Vista so much. I've got Vista SP1 on my laptop and find it very easy to use, i think it's great.

I don't get it either. I have no problems with Vista. I like it better than XP! Its certainly prettier than XP anyway... :P

I think the problem when Vista first came out, was that the majority of stuff didn't work with it (printers, cameras, scanners etc) as microsoft didn't allow companies like HP access to Vista early enough so that the companies like HP could develop new drives.

 

Now the driver issue has been fixed, some of the bugs have been ironed out, but it still hogs a lot of Ram to run properly

i guess some of programs in vista are not working there.. i prefer XP then..

well, im using XP SP2 right now and trying to install SP3 and for me, my plan is waiting that version which all programs have been accepted and accessed and thats all i need:cool:

been using Vista for about a year , it was rough going in the beginning with the drivers , but no such problems since , though it does indeed take much Ram to run properly...

AVG8 takes up too much Ram :(

 

1GB of Ram is no longer enough

hmm , used to have AVG on old pc...