Microsoft: Vista successor may not arrive until 2011
However well customers are taking to Windows Vista, its replacement is only in the earliest stages of development, according to a statement from Microsoft.
The Redmond, Washington-based software giant dashed hopes of an early release of Windows 7 in 2009 in an e-mail message from a company spokesperson, suggesting instead that the operating system was too far away to be ready for a commercial release next year.
"We are currently in the planning stages for Windows 7 and expect it will take approximately 3 years to develop," said the spokesperson. "The specific release date will be determined once the company meets its quality bar for release."
Microsoft also dismissed notions that it was stepping up the development process for the software. The company was "confident" that businesses appreciated Vista and justified any initial hesitation in the segment by arguing that the OS was only just entering mainstream adoption and that it was typical for only a small number of companies to become early adopters of a new Windows release.
The company sold approximately 100 million copies of Vista during 2007 but did so in a much larger market that saw sales of 269 million PCs, according to research firm IDC, indicating that most PCs shipped with Windows XP or other versions of the software released before Vista.
The estimate may place Windows 7 as far away as 2011, or four years after Vista's January 2007 launch, though Microsoft is not known to have indicated whether the three-year timeframe began this year or just after the completion of Vista.
If begun in 2008, Windows 7's development time will be only slightly shorter than for its predecessor. Vista was originally intended for a 2004 introduction but encountered major code rewrites and other delays that pushed it back three years.
By contrast, Apple released Mac OS X Jaguar, Panther, and Tiger in between Microsoft's non-server OS releases and unveiled Leopard in October of last year. The next major release of Mac OS X is due to arrive within 12 to 18 months of the Leopard, according to statements by company chief executive Steve Jobs. That would put its release sometime between late this year and the spring of 2009.
The Redmond, Washington-based software giant dashed hopes of an early release of Windows 7 in 2009 in an e-mail message from a company spokesperson, suggesting instead that the operating system was too far away to be ready for a commercial release next year.
"We are currently in the planning stages for Windows 7 and expect it will take approximately 3 years to develop," said the spokesperson. "The specific release date will be determined once the company meets its quality bar for release."
Microsoft also dismissed notions that it was stepping up the development process for the software. The company was "confident" that businesses appreciated Vista and justified any initial hesitation in the segment by arguing that the OS was only just entering mainstream adoption and that it was typical for only a small number of companies to become early adopters of a new Windows release.
The company sold approximately 100 million copies of Vista during 2007 but did so in a much larger market that saw sales of 269 million PCs, according to research firm IDC, indicating that most PCs shipped with Windows XP or other versions of the software released before Vista.
The estimate may place Windows 7 as far away as 2011, or four years after Vista's January 2007 launch, though Microsoft is not known to have indicated whether the three-year timeframe began this year or just after the completion of Vista.
If begun in 2008, Windows 7's development time will be only slightly shorter than for its predecessor. Vista was originally intended for a 2004 introduction but encountered major code rewrites and other delays that pushed it back three years.
By contrast, Apple released Mac OS X Jaguar, Panther, and Tiger in between Microsoft's non-server OS releases and unveiled Leopard in October of last year. The next major release of Mac OS X is due to arrive within 12 to 18 months of the Leopard, according to statements by company chief executive Steve Jobs. That would put its release sometime between late this year and the spring of 2009.
Comments
"We are currently in the planning stages for Windows 7 and expect it will take approximately 3 years to develop," said the spokesperson.
Thats a typo he said 5-10 years I believe...
This is good news for Apple. Pick Vista or Leopard for the next few years...what's your choice?
Better, pick Vista or large-feline-to-be-named-at-a-later-date for the next few years after that.
The next major release of Mac OS X is due to arrive within 12 to 18 months of the Leopard, according to statements by company chief executive Steve Jobs. That would put its release sometime between late this year and the spring of 2009.
So by arrive, AppleInsider means Steve will demo it and the first developer alpha/beta will be ready.
If Windows 7 is not planned to ship before 2010, there will be a Windows Vista R2 next year but I doubt this.
And please keep in mind that XP SP2 could be called a new version of XP, because the second Service Pack was different to previous ones and a lot of key features of Vista are now also available to XP users (like IE7, Search, Defender, .Net 3.0, Windows Mail and Photo Gallery within Windows Live).
Better, pick Vista or large-feline-to-be-named-at-a-later-date for the next few years after that.
Now that Mac OS X has matured I think the next name should be Cougar.
It would be just in time for Apple to ship 10.7 at the same time as Windows 7! Oh the humanity!
Now that Mac OS X has matured I think the next name should be Cougar.
You know, it almost has to be-- they're running out of big cats, and "Lion" just seems sort of flat, for some reason. Ocelot is too esoteric, and then there's....... what? Saber tooth?
Now that Mac OS X has matured I think the next name should be Cougar.
How about...
Alley Cat
or Pregnant Alley Cat
I don't see MS having this ready before 2013. With ding such massive rewrites instead of small upgrades to code as technology changes they will probably have to do another major rewrite like they did to Vista just to keep up. That is assuming that MS has not learned from their mistakes and will be repeating their mistakes over again.
I really doubt that. You can see why the development of Vista took so long, it was because they wanted too much; it was a personal thing with Allchin as the director; it was caused because of the development of XP SP2 and the whole "security development lifecycle" change inside of MSFT.
They will not make the same mistakes twice now with the new Windows team.
I really doubt that. You can see why the development of Vista took so long, it was because they wanted too much; it was a personal thing with Allchin as the director; it was caused because of the development of XP SP2 and the whole "security development lifecycle" change inside of MSFT.
They will not make the same mistakes twice now with the new Windows team.
You say that, but let's see. I bet they do make the same mistake. The mistake of trying to be to drastic in the changes every time a new OS is released. They should be more like Apple and develop through gradual changes instead of placing you in an environment that is totally alien. This is MS's fault, not the time between releases.
I really doubt that. You can see why the development of Vista took so long, it was because they wanted too much; it was a personal thing with Allchin as the director; it was caused because of the development of XP SP2 and the whole "security development lifecycle" change inside of MSFT.
They will not make the same mistakes twice now with the new Windows team.
It had more to do with the fact that Microsoft was trying to bolt on more to the old codebase of Windows. Adding features is one thing; but with their old codebase, stability and the new features could not coexist. Vista was delayed so many times for the rewrites of the core. The features that were cut were casualties of these rewrites. MS just didn't have time to implement these features properly.
It will, however be interesting to see what really goes into Windows 7, because I expect a deal of it to be from the original feature list of Vista (the stuff that can be practically added). Hopefully there is actually something interesting in this release besides more eye-candy and management tools.
It does dovetail nicely with what could be a 10.7 vs Windows 7 battle. It's only a few years away but I think we're just now beginning to see some serious potential in the OS Wars. I'll be interested in seeing what Apple's direction is for 10.6 and thus momentum into 10.7.
At any rate by the time both OS ship in 2011 or so they will certainly need to manage so many virtual and hard CPU threads I expect the the OS should be always responsive and we may just have the utopian's dream of fluid multitasking.
However with Apple now on the verge of leveraging OSX across multiple platforms and integrating multi-touch across their product line, I don't see how they can wait till 2011 to release the next version of windows (which will presumably have these features).
Can MS afford to give Apple that big of a lead?
I think Time Machine was a first sign that the identity of OS X will be shifting away from cat names and will begin using space-related names. Maybe planets or constellations, or even concepts like warp speed.
OS XI Cosmos
and have a special Carl Sagan Edition?
You know, it almost has to be-- they're running out of big cats, and "Lion" just seems sort of flat, for some reason. Ocelot is too esoteric, and then there's....... what? Saber tooth?
You know, it almost has to be-- they're running out of big cats, and "Lion" just seems sort of flat, for some reason. Ocelot is too esoteric, and then there's....... what? Saber tooth?
According to Wikipedia they have trademarked the names Cougar and Lynx, but not Cheetah, Puma or Jaguar. Of course Puma and Jaguar already came and went.
Below is a refresher of Mac OS X release dates:Of course there was NeXTSTEP between 1988 and 1996, and of course that goes back to Unix. Who know how old the oldest code is that is still in Mac OS X. I feel old!
Anyway, it seems likely that we will see a preview of 10.6 at the WWDC.
I had a joke about the last 10.x build being called Sabertooth because OS X has become "long in the tooth", but since my cougar joke didn't pan out so I'll skip it... except for this mention here.
This really surprises me. It's easy to bash MS, but there still is talent at MS.
However with Apple now on the verge of leveraging OSX across multiple platforms and integrating multi-touch across their product line, I don't see how they can wait till 2011 to release the next version of windows (which will presumably have these features).
Can MS afford to give Apple that big of a lead?
Yes primarily based on Apple's woeful penetration into SMB and Enterprise markets. Microsoft will coast on the new flavors of Windows 2008 server, Unified Communication and other burgeoning tech. They'll be fine.
It would be just in time for Apple to ship 10.7 at the same time as Windows 7! Oh the humanity!
Battle of the 7's... interesting. For Microsoft, I honestly don't see them putting out Windows 7 honestly until late 2012. We'll see if I'm right on that. I expect them to have even more setbacks with this release. They will try to differentiate themselves and innovate on that release, to set themselves apart from Mac OS, and it will take a long time to do that, if at all.
As for Mac OS X, here is my hope. I hope that that 10.5 will be the end of Mac OS X and Apple will move forward with Mac OS XI (11) what ever they want to call it. My hope for Apple is that in that move to OS 11, they make a monumental leap forward with new innovative features, and finally implement the ZFS file system (should they not with 10.5.. here's hoping though). That's my wish for Apple in the next couple of years. I love 10.5. I think it's the best release yet, but there is always room for improvement in 10.5 though. Such as: damn it, why can't the iSub still work? it does in Vista... why can't I define what spotlight can include in it's searches through system preferences? I hate having to go to the finder and selecting search system files every time I need to locate something. It'd also be nice to have the timemachine icon in the dock to include a progress bar when it's doing backups (like roxio's toast). Stuff like that would be nice to have. But all in all, I think 10.5 is awesome and would prefer it over Vista, even if I had to use it until 2012 until Microsoft unveils the plans of their new OS, in development.