Greg wrote:

You missed the most interesting thing about this: Ballmer said Windows 7 would come out in 2009.

I meant to mention that but it slipped my mind while writing the article. They’ve drilled into all of our heads the “3-years after Vista” date, and so my guess is that they are targeting a late 2009 launch for business and early 2010 launch for consumers. Just like with Vista.

nimrodguy wrote:

Hmmmm… where have I seen a touch screen interface before that lets you use two fingers to shrink and enlarge photos???

Surely the only thing you could be thinking of is the Microsoft Surface, right?

CoryC wrote:

I think this will be more interesting in a point-of-sale system that are used by retailers, food service, etc. Think of the number of large retails and restaurant chains that could use Windows based systems in their stores. It would easily integrate with all the current software stack Microsoft already offers (SQL Server, Windows Server, BizTalk, etc). You could easily get 100,000’s of additional PCs in the business market place. Along with that new system purchase corporations would be more likely to upgrade existing system to the latest-and-greatest version of the server software. Heck, it may even spure the growth of SharePoint services. What compliments SharePoint? MOSS (Microsoft Office Sharepoint Services and) which could mean large sales of the latest version of Microsoft Office.
Just because a new feature is introduced don’t assume it’s for the home consumer.

That’s actually a really good point, and I hadn’t thought about anything along those lines. But I’m still wondering how multi-touch could benefit a general point of sale system.

Lots of retailers and restaurants already use touch screens to increase productivity; it’s faster to touch than to use a mouse and keyboard when placing order or checking out a customer (also no keyboard or mouse is needed so neither breaks ro needs to be replaced). Also, think about the touch screen “self checkout” units in a lot of supermarkets. I’m sure Microsoft would like to be the ones providing the OS for those systems.

Well of course the UI won’t be a lot different than Vista right now since it’s still at its early stages. But I think everyone are more willing to see some other improvements other than the interface, right?

I actually like Vista’s Aero interface, and so it wouldn’t really bother me if Microsoft didn’t update the interface this time around. I’m sure there will be some minor changes to it, but I think the Aero glass is here to stay for awhile.

You missed the most interesting thing about this: Ballmer said Windows 7 would come out in 2009.

I meant to mention that but it slipped my mind while writing the article. They’ve drilled into all of our heads the “3-years after Vista” date, and so my guess is that they are targeting a late 2009 launch for business and early 2010 launch for consumers. Just like with Vista.

Surely the only thing you could be thinking of is the Microsoft Surface, right?

That’s actually a really good point, and I hadn’t thought about anything along those lines. But I’m still wondering how multi-touch could benefit a general point of sale system.

Hmmmm… where have I seen a touch screen interface before that lets you use two fingers to shrink and enlarge photos???

And I’m not too crazy about touching my laptop or desktop screen… is there anything more annoying than a huge fingerprint smudge on your high resolution monitor?

I think this will be more interesting in point-of-sale systems that are used by retailers, food service, etc. Think of the number of large retails and restaurant chains that could use Windows based systems in their stores. It would easily integrate with the current software stack that Microsoft already offers (SQL Server, Windows Server, BizTalk, etc). You could easily get 100,000′s of additional PCs in the business market place. Along with that new system purchases, corporations would be more likely to upgrade existing system to the latest-and-greatest version of the server software. Heck, it may even spure the growth of SharePoint services. What compliments SharePoint? MOSS (Microsoft Office Sharepoint Services and) which could mean large sales of the latest version of Microsoft Office.

Just because a new feature is introduced don’t assume it’s for the home consumer.

And I’m not too crazy about touching my laptop or desktop screen… is there anything more annoying than a huge fingerprint smudge on your high resolution monitor?

You missed the most interesting thing about this: Ballmer said Windows 7 would come out in 2009.

It is interesting that they’re saying it will come out in late 2009, but we have no idea if it will get pushed back or not. We saw Vista pushed back how many times? Several, so I wouldn’t keep your hopes up for a late 2009 launch.

You missed the most interesting thing about this: Ballmer said Windows 7 would come out in 2009.

It’s not really that interesting. It could mean that the first beta is generally available in 2009 or that in 2009 it’s RTM which could be general available to consumers in 2010. Until they communicate the actual schedule it really doesn’t mean much. And besides, those dates are subject to change based on, what Sinofsky says, is “what we want to achieve”.