I’ve had Windows 7 installed on my Macbook for a couple of days and my first impression has been very positive. This is an extremely stable OS and on Boot Camp it’s actually running better than the Vista installation I had on before it.

Before I touch on the OS I’m going to make a quick note on installing it. If you own a Mac avoid Parallels. I have a fully upgraded copy which identified Windows 7 and was a breeze to setup. On logging in for the first time however things did not look right. After a quick Live Search I discovered that Parallels does not support Aero and seems to have an outdated video driver. To appreciate Win7 fully you really need to have Aero active. Install it onto Boot Camp and enjoy a great OS.

The first thing you really notice is the new taskbar. Whatever anyone else says this is a fantastic addition. It’s easy to tell the difference between running applications and shortcuts. A quick mouse over a running application and you get a set of thumbnails, not a big deal you might think but mouse over a thumbnail and you get a preview of the window. I don’t want to go back to XP and Vista already. It’s also great to have the System Tray hidden from view.

What about applications since this is a beta? Well so far so good. I’ve the Windows live Essentials suite up and running and will shortly be installing Office 2007. iTunes is possibly one of the biggest surprises. It installs and actually seems to work.

I’ll continue to use Windows 7 and will keep updating you all on it but as far as I’m concerned this really is the OS Vista should’ve been. Great job Microsoft, keep it up.

Labels: Parallels, Windows 7

Well the CES keynote is approaching and after the disappointment of the Macworld keynote we’re hoping that Microsoft can make the most of this opportunity. On the Apple keynote I thought Phil did an excellent job considering the products he was introducing. I would like to see how he would deliver an iPhone level announcement. I suspect tonight’s keynote is going to focus on integration. Hopefully they’re going to show us how Microsoft products fit together and how they fit in with future products such as Windows 7.

1. Windows 7. This has got to play a major role in today’s keynote. Showing the integration with Windows Live, ability to run on Netbooks and finally the availability of the beta to testers.

2. Zune Phone. If this product is ever going to be announced then this has got to be the time to do it. The HTC Touch HD is getting great reviews even though it is running Windows Mobile 6.1 and Macworld had nothing that the media can really get it’s teeth into. This new competitive Windows Mobile to be available in Q2 would be perfect.

3. Live Framework. To keep developers happy we’ll probably see the introduction of Live Framework giving integration with Live services as well as Live Mesh and Azure. We will also hopefully be able to get our hands on the online Office applications. If they are released now for free they’ll wipe the floor with iWork.com.

4. XBox360. Considering the success of this console it would be hard to believe that it won’t make an appearance. Closer integration with the Live services and probably a few new games.

image from microsoft.com

Labels: CES 2009, Microsoft, Microsoft Office 2007, Steve Ballmer, Windows 7, Windows Live, XBox360, Zune

I understand the desire to get headlines in media land and beating on Microsoft seems to be regarded as easy headlines at the moment but I couldn’t believe that I was seeing reviews of Windows 7 appearing across the net. We’re talking about an Operating System that isn’t even in beta yet. This is the same as reviewing Android based on the first simulator and not the phone itself. To hear negative reviews of Windows 7 at this stage borders on a joke.

In the interest of getting a good headline therefore I’m going to review Windows 8 now. I’m thinking it’s going to be based on the Windows Vista architecture and therefore it’s going to be a total disaster. In fact based on this one thought alone the whole Windows line is probably doomed, Apple will capture the desktop market and Microsoft will be out of business within the next ten years.

Well that should have the anti-Microsoft crowd happy. For everyone else I would tell you to look forward to the upcoming Windows 7 release. The Vista architecture gives stability and security while the Redmond team are obviously listening to users and have massively improved the UI and usability of 7. Microsoft are moving in the right direction and with the Windows Live platform to go along with it I can see Microsoft holding onto it’s crown for many years to come.

Labels: Microsoft, Windows 7, Windows Vista

I love the idea of Windows 7 having touch capabilities built in. A widescreen touch capable TV with a Windows 7 PC hooked up to it means no mouse, no keyboard but total control. Build similar technology into the next XBox, not for actually controlling games obviously, and you could have control of all living room media without the need for multiple controls. All you need to add is a touch sensitive media remote that displays the menu's that appear on the screen so selection is as easy as possible and you have a fantastic touch driven media suite all from Microsoft. Add the next generation of Windows Home Server, which I imagine will have full media server capabilities built in, and Microsoft can easily beat Apple and Sony to the living room and have it sewn up before anyone realises what's happened.

Labels: Apple, Bill Gates, iMac, Multi-touch, Steve Ballmer, Windows 7, Windows Home Server, XBox

A few interesting points to take away from the interview are:
1) Windows 7 release is penciled in for 2010, baring that in mind we are in the very early stages of development and this may not actually be a cone of silence just the lack of a hard feature list.
2) The approach now appears to be, under-promise then over-deliver. A good strategy.
3) Windows 7 is a 'manor' release, i.e. not quite a major release but more than a minor release.

Paul concludes by saying:

This makes me wonder: Is the major release wording a hint that major new end user functionality is coming? Or are they simply pulling an Apple and claiming that every release is a major release now?

I think it's a hint at major new functionality being built on the existing code base. The integration with Cloud Computing, altered security (I have to believe UAC will get an overhaul even though I don't believe it should), new UI and a deeper integration of virtualisation with the desktop environment could lead to a feature list that could be argued as a major upgrade.

Another reason i don't think Windows 7 will be a major upgrade is the close relationship between Server 2008 and Windows Vista. The work that went into bringing these two systems closer will not be thrown away. 7 will have the same Core as Vista but it'll feel very different.

Labels: CNET, Microsoft, Paul Thurrott, Steven Sinofsky, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista

Well things are quite quiet on the tech news front which gives me the opportunity to look at the Windows 7 debate again. I read Ed Bott's artcle on Windows 7 here. He makes a two points regarding beta cycles and feedback that I don't agree with.

[Update: After re-reading the post it appears that I misread it. I agree with what's being said in these points. Suppose that's what happens when I post after a late night]

I suppose this comes down to how much of a failure you believe Vista is but for those who do believe Vista failed to deliver I ask them to remember that the features you saw in the final release is only a small subset of the features that were supposed to be in it. It was the large amount of public [Update: Not public, private testing] testing that told Microsoft that the new features were too complicated and too far from what the users understood and Microsoft had to remove them. The Vista that would've been released if it hadn't been for the comprehensive testing and feedback might've been a little more complicated but it certainly would've been feature rich and different enough from XP to make it a must have. Microsoft seemed to be saying at the time that the features that were removed would be slowly added over the next few OS versions to make the transition easier on the end user. I don't think added user feedback would help Windows 7, actually the opposite.

Labels: Ed Bott, Microsoft, Windows 7, Windows Vista

Labels: EU Commission, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Microsoft, Windows 7, Windows Live

Here's what Chief Strategy Officer Mundie told Reuters in Indonesia:
"The market may wish that the Yahoo deal may come back
together, but Microsoft at least at this point assumes it's over."

"At least at this point." "Assumes." Those weren't the words Microsoft was using two days ago. And Mundie was just getting warmed up:
"Yahoo could always come back again and say please buy us for $33 (a share) and I'm sure we might reconsider it but we're not assuming that's going to happen," added Mundie, who took over as Microsoft's lead visionary on technology from co-founder Bill Gates in 2006.

Translation: We reiterate our bid of $33. We're done with begging, but
if Jerry is tired of getting his fanny spanked by Gordon Crawford and other huge shareholders and wants to bring the deal papers up to Redmond, we'll sign them.

I honestly cannot believe that they're looking at this deal again. I believe that if they are reconsidering it's down to Google's reaction yesterday to the deal being called off. They basically said that they were glad the deal didn't go through and with all the talk about Google playing a winning role in bringing down the deal it might prick Ballmer's Google hatred nerve. If that happens we could see a deal due to ego.

I sincerely hope that is not going to happen. I'll say it again, Microsoft need to take a few billion and:
1) Buy a social network company like Facebook. One Windows Live ID allowing you to access a huge number of services and social sites but even more importantly think of all those eyeballs looking at Microsoft delivered ads. Even more importantly though would be Microsoft's ability to create applications for Facebook that are actually useful and attention grabbing. Get advertisement for Microsoft software.

2) Buy a true blogger site like WordPress. While Live Spaces are a nice wee profile some people, like myself, wanted a proper blog. I looked for a Microsoft delivered option and there were none. Buy or introduce a blogging service that only does blogging and that can be hosted from a remote site.

3) Bring Live Calendar out of beta and allow people to sync with their desktop mail application for free.

4) Promote the use of their API's and try to enhance the developer community. Tying the API's more closely to Vista's Gadget sidebar allowing the development of one gadget that can work on Live.com and Vista with no alteration needed. NB last time i heard one gadget could not work easily on both but I could be wrong and will need to develop one to confirm.

5) Bring the Live Applications closer together and tie them into Vista more efficiently. For example the ability to map SkyDrive to your Windows Explorer drive list and be able to simply save to it like any local drive would be great and make it much more usable.

6) Split the Windows 7 code into two streams, one for business and one for consumers. This would at least allow them to provide features that a specific to home users and not have many versions of the OS that only have slight differences.

7) It's time to see a Microsoft branded PC. I want to see Vista running on a machine that has drivers and hardware optimised for Windows Vista/7. Bring in proper designers, don't copy Apple's look and produce something stylish and lightening fast.

8) Microsoft really need an ad-sense engine. Google ads are being placed on millions of sites because everyone makes on it and you can place them for free. Again I was looking for Microsoft sponsored ads but couldn't find anything similar. While I'm not keen on copying everything Google does there are still some things they do that are genuinely useful and really do need to be copied.

9) Kill live.com. I'll come back to this in a later post because I'd look to look into this in a little more detail first.

10) Buy Twitter, and 22hundred ;)

Labels: Ad-Sense, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Windows 7, Windows Live, Windows Vista, WordPress, Yahoo

Paul Thurrott has two gallerys showing the 6519 build of Windows 7. I've included a couple of pictures here and the rest can be seen at here and here.

Labels: Paul Thurrott, Pictures, Windows 7

Mary Jo Foley talks about the release date of Windows 7 in her latest blog. A lot of what she says makes good sense. Personally I can't see 7 arriving in 2009. I suspect the most likely scenario is a delay influenced release in mid-2010. I also can't see Windows 7 being massively different from Windows Vista. The new kernel, an enhanced security model and much closer ties to the Windows Live Suite will be the most notable differences but I suspect the UI and the experience in general will not change substantially. I look forward to seeing the first beta release in the last few months of 2008 and will be keeping close tabs on Windows 7 news as it becomes available.

Labels: Microsoft, Windows 7

News has leaked out about a new interface for Windows 7, the next OS from Microsoft and it's massive. As we know Microsoft have been taking a lot of flack over the years regarding a perceived lack of innovation so they've gone out to do something about it. With Apple claiming touch and gesture technology, Microsoft is introducing thought technology. A Microsoft insider stated, "We've been working on this for a number of years now and since the public's perception of Vista was weak and Apple had cornered the touch market it was decided that this is the perfect moment to announce this new innovation."

When asked how the technology is used the insider would not go into too many specifics but he did state, "This works in the same way as a mouse cursor. You put on a specially designed Hat-Thought Interface and look at a particular part of the screen. The HTT picks up the location and the cursor moves there automatically. You then think 'click' 'click' and the interface interprets this as a double click and accesses the application. We see this as the next major step forward in computer human interaction. We also hope to one day make it possible for users to download information directly from the Internet into their brains through this same HTT."

This technology is set to be released as part of the Windows 7 OS and Microsoft hope that it will then be able to regain some of the market share that it lost to Linux and Apple because of the disastrous Vista.

Labels: Apple, Hat-Thought Interface, Linux, Microsoft, Windows 7

A story from bbc.co.uk is reporting that Google are finding the Microsoft purchase of Yahoo, "troubling".

Google has criticised Microsoft's proposed bid for Yahoo

Google has said it finds Microsoft's $44.6bn ($22.65bn) bid to buy rival Yahoo "troubling" and wants regulators to scrutinise the proposed deal.

 

This is a very understandable reaction from a company that has been dominating the online application space for a number of years now. Google's business model relies heavily on advertising, as we know, and the revenue from advertising is directly linked to the amount of traffic visiting the sites. The Microsoft/Yahoo deal may decrease this number of users, hence decreasing the amount of advertising revenue ergo decreasing the amount of profits Google are making and with Wall Street already concerned about the amount of profits Google are going to be able to make during the economic slowdown this takeover has produced a very defensive response.

But lets forget Google for a moment and take a look at this from the only viewpoint that really matters, the consumers. The regulators must look at this as a benefit to the consumer. The Search giant really is not producing many online applications that are of a truly high standard or for the applications that are a high standard the opposition is just as good. Lets take a look at some examples:

1. Google Maps. There is no questioning the fact that this is an extremely high quality application which can now be installed on Nokia N95 as well as having it on iPhone and iPod Touch. It's impossible not to be impressed with the quality of the imaging. On the other hand I used the application last week on my iPod Touch to find a restaurant near to where I work. Wondering why the distance to the nearest one was over 5 miles I checked where Maps thought my location was and it placed me in the middle of the Irish Sea! Maybe this is just an unfortunate example but Nokia's Maps application on the N95 using GPS is fantastic. What does place Google's application above the competition is the high quality of aerial photographs of cities that aren't in the US. If all Google products were as good as Maps and Search they wouldn't be worrying about this deal, they wouldn't need to.

2. GMail. This is one of Google's flagship products, and in many ways a product that has caused the most headaches for their legal department over the last couple of years. GMail is another mail client needle in a massive stack of mail client needles. The support of POP3 and IMAP certainly makes it easier to receive your email while using a wide variety of devices and the GMail application for N95 is very handy. In the GMail client the grouping of emails into conversations and ability to categorise emails using labels makes it quite appealing. However to anyone familiar with Outlook, as many office workers will be, Live Mail will be very familiar and usable. This can either be a curse or a blessing but personally I believe that it's a blessing. For anyone not wanting to access their mail through the browser they can download the Live Mail desktop application which allows you to add numerous email accounts and support POP3, IMAP and HTTP, what more could you want. Due to the Outlook like interface users get familiarity and generally users like familiarity. In fact this leads onto a much larger point.

3. Google Docs vs. Microsoft Office vs. Open Office. Many of the future battles for users will be fought in the Online Office space so lets take a quick look at the competitors.
Google Docs is a growing online office application offering Spreadsheet, Presentation and Word Processing software. The applications allow you to work on your documents anywhere that has an Internet connection and save them online. No more installation of software and no more documents and charts taking up hard drive space that your family photos and music could be inhabiting.  However the applications do not have the breadth of features that Microsoft Office and Open Office has. Also, if you're not connected to the Internet you cannot access your documents so no working on the plane. Finally, many companies are not going to be enthusiastic about saving their official documents online.
Open Office has both online and offline applications now. Their online application offers similar functionality to the Google Docs Application but with the familiar Open Office interface. Once again I feel familiarity is deeply important. The offline application is a viable competitor to Microsoft. Considering this is a totally free application the feature depth is impressive. It's support of other file formats however is a little questionable and in a world were many of the documents you author will be read or edited using Microsoft Office this is going to be a disadvantage. Once again though for students or for home users Open Office is a viable alternative worth considering.
Microsoft Office. I don't want to sound bias but this is the King of Office Applications. The depth of features and the number of users world wide make this the Office application that every user should have. While Open Office is successful it feels like Microsoft Works in comparison to MS Office. The new Ribbon Interface on Windows machines is beautiful to use and with Outlook Connector installed there is no mail server you can't get mail from, that I have found anyway. Word is the best Word Processor in the World by a considerable distance and excluding Mac applications PowerPoint is the best presentation application in the World. Excel may have some bad points but many users will never see them and anyone needing it for calculations like their finances it is perfect. Office is getting a live feature which is going to be a method of uploading your documents to an Internet storage location thus giving it access to them from any machine that has Office installed. With the Office applications making a lot of money I cannot see MS producing Office applications online anytime soon.

Looking at the examples so far we can see that the share of quality is pretty even. While Microsoft dominates the Office and Desktop OS environments Google dominates the Online application and search environments. With the Mobile World still very much up for grabs, and baring in mind that Apple's well and truly battling for it, Microsoft needs the injection of energy that Yahoo would bring. But herein lies the question, what will Microsoft do with Yahoo? The best case scenario is that Microsoft fully incorporate Yahoo R&D into Windows Live and scrap the Yahoo brand. They then need to re-release the Yahoo applications as Windows Live applications while incorporating functionality from Yahoo Mail and Messenger into the Live Mail and Messenger services. Full support for all Yahoo addresses should be kept and incorporated into the Windows Live Authentication mechanism. The Windows Live team then needs to give the Yahoo guys a big say in the future of Windows Live services. Yahoo 'get' the Internet and its users and Microsoft 'get' success and how to maintain it. Let the Yahoo developers create the high quality applications they are used to producing and release them under Windows Live.

Finally Microsoft needs to take a look at Windows 7. Is this really going to be a desktop oriented OS that's going to be rushed out because they can't handle the marketing of Vista, seriously guys the OS is excellent it should be an easy sell, or are they going to think about creating a hybrid OS. Fully incorporating applications created by the semi-independent, Yahoo driven developers into the OS and making it feel like your working in the Cloud as well as on your machine could open the door to the future of computing. A mobile driven, cloud driven, freedom driven OS that lets you work on anything, anywhere and at any time using tools developed by the Yahoo and Windows Live R&D team could be the Platform to re-launch Microsoft into a new Era. It's time to rebuild the brand and this deal is the way to do it.

Labels: Google, Microsoft, Windows 7, Yahoo

A video, which can be found here, appears to show the M1 build of Windows 7. Since it is extremely early into the development of 7 we would not expect to see many new things in this build and we would expect to see something that looks almost identical to Vista, which we do. However, the fact that it is filmed on a camcorder and the only differences we are being shown is a 7 in a few About dialogs, it is hard to believe that this is Windows 7. Expect to see many videos of "7" circulate in the next few days and weeks.

Labels: Windows 7, YouTube