After a lot of silence by Microsoft they have finally created a blog that will serve as a hub for Windows 7 information. The Engineering Windows 7 blog published an introductory post yesterday stating their intentions. They came straight out and said that there will be two-way discussions going on in the comments, assuming that they weren’t just throwing in some fluff to make people happy:
We strongly believe that success for Windows 7 includes an open and honest, and two-way, discussion about how we balance all of these interests and deliver software on the scale of Windows. We promise and will deliver such a dialog with this blog.
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We’ll watch the comments and we will definitely participate both in comments and potentially in follow-up posts as required.
They also said that at Professional Developers Conference (PDC) on October 27th they will be providing “in-depth technical information” regarding Windows 7. A week after that comes the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) where more info will be given out.
Will Beta releases be coming soon? They didn’t mention anything about them, but I’d have to imagine they’ll be here by the end of the year if they plan on sticking to their “early 2010″ release date. Vista Beta 1 was released one year and three months prior to it being completed, and I’d guess the same timeframe will be needed for Windows 7 in order iron out the bugs.
Thanks Omar!
After the way they shot themselves on the foot, the opening of a two-way-communication blog is a good idea.
I’m sure this time around, Microsoft is taking no chances at being ridiculed by Apple they way they were with Vista. After taking several hits, SB (Steve Ballmer) is learning to be humble.
Excitement over Microsoft’s next OS? The thrill has gone.
This Windows 7 thing is quite interesting, most likely will be a Vista Reloaded. People will have their Vista, whether they like it or not. Maybe Linux is a better alternative for them…
They definitely have learned from their mistake with Vista, where Microsoft didn’t have a “two-way” discussion.
It definitely won’t come with a big redesign like Vista included, and so it will look like the same operating system when glancing. Though I’d suspect that they’ll have some nice new features in it.
Apple has indeed tried to capitalize on Microsoft’s misfortune with Vista.