Windows 7 will be like Windows Vista, but more so, Microsoft Corp.CEO Steve Ballmer said today as he defended the first two years of Vista and claimed its successor will be a major release.
"[Windows 7], it's Windows Vista, a lot better," said Ballmer during a 45-minute question-and-answer session hosted by a pair of Gartner Inc. analysts at the research firm's annual Symposium ITxpo in Orlando, Fla. today. The interview was later posted as a webcast on the Gartner site.
Ballmer was responding to a question from Gartner's Neil MacDonald, who asked how Microsoft would walk the line between doing too much with Windows 7 -- thus, risking the kind of compatibility problems that plagued Vista early in its career -- and too little, which might give customers an excuse to pass on the upgrade.
"Windows Vista is good, Windows 7 is Windows Vista with clean-up in user interface [and] improvements in performance," Ballmer said. "Look, I'm not encouraging anybody to wait, I'd go ahead and deploy it right away. We didn't have to go in an incompatible direction to make big strides forward."
Ballmer also took exception to the idea that Windows 7 will be a minor release or a spit polish on Vista. "It's a real release," he said, "because it's a lot more work than a minor release. It turns out you can [do] more than just a minor release in what is essentially a two-and-a-half year period of time. There's no reason to do just, quote, a minor release, in two-and-a-half years."
More: http://www.pcworld.com/article/152406/article.html?tk=nl_dnxnws
"[Windows 7], it's Windows Vista, a lot better," said Ballmer during a 45-minute question-and-answer session hosted by a pair of Gartner Inc. analysts at the research firm's annual Symposium ITxpo in Orlando, Fla. today. The interview was later posted as a webcast on the Gartner site.
Ballmer was responding to a question from Gartner's Neil MacDonald, who asked how Microsoft would walk the line between doing too much with Windows 7 -- thus, risking the kind of compatibility problems that plagued Vista early in its career -- and too little, which might give customers an excuse to pass on the upgrade.
"Windows Vista is good, Windows 7 is Windows Vista with clean-up in user interface [and] improvements in performance," Ballmer said. "Look, I'm not encouraging anybody to wait, I'd go ahead and deploy it right away. We didn't have to go in an incompatible direction to make big strides forward."
Ballmer also took exception to the idea that Windows 7 will be a minor release or a spit polish on Vista. "It's a real release," he said, "because it's a lot more work than a minor release. It turns out you can [do] more than just a minor release in what is essentially a two-and-a-half year period of time. There's no reason to do just, quote, a minor release, in two-and-a-half years."
More: http://www.pcworld.com/article/152406/article.html?tk=nl_dnxnws
