Rich Fiscus
20 Jul 2007 21:09
As consumers, businesses, and technical publications ponder when Windows Vista will be capable of doing what Windows XP already does, Microsoft is already talking to its sales force about the next version of the operating system.
Tentatively being called Windows 7 (ie Windows NT version 7), there was little talk about features, but quite a bit about establishing a regular release schedule for new vesions of the #1 desktop operating system in the world.
This isn't surprising given the results of a study published earlier this month by Forrester Reasearch Inc. indicating that at least a quarter of Microsoft's corporate customers with software assurance licenses will stop using the service, and the number may end up being closer to 50%.
Software Assurance is the Microsoft program that allows customers with volume licenses for Windows automatically get upgrades when new versions come out. The problem is the time between Windows XP and Windows Vista has made customers question what they're getting for their money. This is very bad news for Microsoft since their revenue from the Software Assurance program was over $4 billion in the first quarter of this year alone.
The real question seems to be whether there will be any reason to upgrade to the next version of Windows. It can easily take more than a year to get a new operating system from initial beta test phase, before which almost all major changes must at least be ready for testing. In a three year schedule that only leaves two years to finalize changes from the last version.
With prices as high as $350 for some versions of Windows Vista, and likely adoption by many users to wait for new computer purchases, or at least the first service pack, it's hard to imagine a scenario under which future Windows releases would continue to generate the kind of excitement we saw for earlier versions of the operating system.
Sources: CNet News, Computerworld