“Vowing to release a new operating system every three years, [Microsoft] now has about 20 months until the supposed release date for Windows 7. The tight-lipped mastodon has just started to let a trickle of feature details slip out, and I have to say that the early glimpses have not been very impressive,” Anders Bylund writes for The Motley Fool.
Bylund writes, “You know how the Apple iPhone and iPod touch have these cool screens where you drag stuff around with your fingertips? Yeah, Microsoft will do that, too. Great, huh?”
Bylund writes, “Drag five fingers across the screen in a painting program, and you could leave five colorful glowworms in their wake. Play 10-finger chords on an on-screen piano, and resize photos by dragging the corners apart with two fingers. Wow, that’s neato!”
“The iPhone screen can do all of these tricks already, and I’m not really sure what the big innovation is here. At least Microsoft seems to be imitating an established leader in user interface design this time,” Bylund writes. “I understand that it’s early in the game, but if [this is] the best Microsoft’s army of engineers can come up with… then the company is in trouble. There may not be much of a reason for anybody to migrate to Windows Vista 360, Windows You, or whatever they’ll call this one.”
Microsoft’s “management is saying that the next Windows will not be a dramatic departure from Vista, and the underpinnings will remain the same,” Bylund writes. “That’s a huge mistake.”
Full article here.
So Microsoft is basically adding some copycat “multi-touch” features to Windows Vista and calling it “Windows 7.” How nice. For most users who don’t care about getting a touch screen, it will be an expensive non-upgrade.
It will be very interesting to see how long it takes M$ to get this next version on the market and how many new features of real use it even has at that point.
M$ . . “Anything you can do I can do better” , well, 3rd rate innovations I MEANT imitations.
BTW quoting the article . . “The tight-lipped mastodon . . . lol
Windows doesn’t need eye candy or features it needs to become more secure and stable.
I don’t know if Windows can start all over again (like OS X). But it’s an idea. It seems the majority of users that MicroSoft is losing to Apple aren’t the big corporations etc. its the home users.
Maybe a ground up home version is in order.
The grand innovation from yesterday’s Windows 7 demo:
Yea, but can you drag a folder into the trash (recycle) and not have it strip the folder away and leave just the files.
Just loved that feature!
Only could MS screw up throwing stuff in the trash.
Just think, you’ll be able to drag cards around in Solitaire!
A crack coding team of 3,000 is working around the clock for the next two years to make it happen. Rumor is that you’ll be able to fingerpaint your own card designs! Billions in R&D!
Ars Technica:
“Windows 7 demo: all multitouch and no meat”
“What was shown at D6 was rather less than hoped. The big feature—in fact, the sole feature—demonstrated was multitouch, the same technology as found in Microsoft’s multi-thousand-dollar Surface table and Apple’s iPhone.”
From Big Ass Table to Big Ass computer?
Not to mention those very dock like icons at the bottom of the screen that the M$ spokes lady said she was not supposed to talk about.
Redmond start your copy machines!
Way way back when Microsoft had MS Dos Apple has Icons all over
the screen for many years. Then Microsoft came out with Windows, everything Apple has done Microsoft will try and copy, and they are
very bad at the copy part. Years later came the Apple iPod, and what did Microsoft come out with a Zune, another poor copy of the
iPod, now today Apple has the best touch screen and OS, so again what is Microsoft working on. you can answer that one.
To Tommy Boy:
The big thing they are missing is the form factor of a laptop is no good for using a Multi-Touch type of screen. This is typical of such a sales driven company…
Gorilla Arm, anyone?
Ampar
Thats a great pic of a kid eating a brown Zune.
Microsoft
Your Invention, Our (half-assed) Imitation.
“… and the underpinnings will remain the same” And there lies the core problem, the underpinnings. They are old, old , old and putting bling on them will do absolutely nothing. Unfortunately, MS cannot reinvent the underpinnings as the installed base of enterprise software relies on those underpinnings. They should exit the consumer business and pay attention to the enterprise. If nothing else,such a move will assure that high employment in IT is maintained.
“Gorilla Arm, anyone?”
Ballmer was pushing for a tongue driven interface. They thought he was kidding.
Kevin:
I’m pretty sure MS’s latest effort involves the entire ass.
Microsoft can’t change the underpinnings of Windows 7 to be different from Vista: they don’t have 10 years to come out with a Vista replacement.
I’m sure Apple is firing up the legal department to block MS from using any multi-touch technology in Windows 7. Because the iPhone is based on OS X, Apple likely has patents all in place to protect against copying the multi-touch use in a desktop computer OS.
It will be very funny to have Microsoft come out with Windows 7 only to have Apple either block sales or force MS to remove multi-touch from Windows.
“Our greatest innovation – multi-touch – is no longer available due to patent infringement.”
Followed closely by a HUGE sale on used, burned-out copiers in Seattle.
Was this moron looking at the same Windows 7 demo that took my breath away? That demo was FREAKIN’ AWESOME! Windows 7 is the final nail in the coffin for Linux, and MAC better watch out and hire some real engineers to stay in the same game as Microsoft.
You MAC lemmings are all upset that Gates and Ballmer stunned the crowd with another fantastic performance and it left you wondering why Apple sticks that has-been hippie Jobs up there time and time again with second-rate, wannabe Microsoft products. Whatever. There’s still time for Apple to dump OS X and license Windows 7.
Your potential. Our passion.™
“a HUGE sale on used, burned-out copiers”
They’re going to sell their entire executive staff?
I think the article (and most other commentators on this issue) kind of misses the point. This is not a demo of Windows 7, just a demo of multi-touch in Windows.
The intention here likely has nothing to do with consumers, what they want in the next windows, or even what might *be* in the next windows. Redmond is still trying to figure that out as evidenced by their singularly obscure and muddled statements on Windows 7 to date.
The demo was merely a technology demonstration to battle the perception that Apple is “ahead” of Windows. It’s about positioning the company as on the bleeding edge of technology as opposed to what most people think (which is that Apple is light years ahead of them.)
From that point of view, it’s a smart move on MS’s part. they can’t actually produce any products in this area for a year or two minimum, so it’s important to fight the perception now, and keep people interested in the platform. Pure PR is what it is.
Reminds me of that movie Seven.
Sloth, envy……
MS = pathetic. The equivalent of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Multi touch is the future of computer interfaces……Dont expect anyone else to have a revolution for some time….
Just because Microsoft is going multi touch doesn’t mean its copying Apple, it HAS to go multi touch.
Microsoft is attempting to cash in on Apple’s innovation. The iPhone and it’s multi-touch function is seen as an Apple design. Microsoft slapping it on top of Vista is likely to harm Microsoft’s credibility with their core users, the IT industry. If Microsoft screws up Windows 7 without fixing some of the big underlying issues with it’s Core Vista Code it is just going to compound the Windows XP holdout and migrations to the alternatives.
If Palm who bought and owned, at one time, the BeOS if they were smart they would have pulled it off the shelf dusted it off and started selling it as an alternative to Windows Vista. With a little investment in OS engineers Palm could have a bigger OS market-share right now then Apple does. By the time Window’s 7 comes out they could be a major OS competitor and give MS a real fight.
OEM manufactures are currently in a desperate search to offer their customers an alternatives to MS Windows. A few licensing deals and Palm could be in the PC OS business in short order. Invest a little money in development and they could be eating into the MS market-share in a big way.
Because BeOS is UNIX based application conversion for the tens of thousands of BSD and Mac OS programs out there would be a quick and all most a pain free deal. With Palm and Apple having BSD UNIX based OS’s, Application Developers would jump on board faster then rats bailed off the Titanic. If Palm and Apple combined market-share reached a 50% to 60% of the OS market by the time Windows 7 hits the streets, it would rupture the MS bubble. While it’s unlikely MS would collapse, I do think we’d see them quickly put Windows development on a back burner and focus more on the Google issue and seeing them shift most of their resources in that direction. The Zune will be killed in less then 18 months and the Zune marketplace will die 6 to 8 months after that but, if Palm jumped into the OS business say by July of 2008, Microsoft would kill it sooner, to shift their resources to combat a Palm invasion of the Commercial OS space.
Jeremy:
So, you’re saying that MS is still the master of vaporware?