Blog: Pete Loshin

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Sounds Like a Scheduled Patch Release to Me

Check this out: Microsoft: Vista Follow-up Likely in 2009. According to Robert McMillan, IDG News Service, we can expect to see Microsoft's follow-up to Vista in just a couple of years or so.

Considering how many years (five, in case you weren't counting) we've been waiting for Vista, it seems odd that Microsoft would be in such a rush to roll out a new version. I predict that whatever it is, it won't be a full-blown upgrade to Vista: think Vista 98, or maybe even Vista Service Pack 2.

Read about how Vista was originally supposed to deliver "...radical changes to Windows, including a new file system and a reinvented user interface," but got knocked off schedule when Microsoft's product line was "...hit by widespread worm outbreaks in 2003." As a result, Microsoft had to redirect "...almost its entire engineering effort to locking down Windows with the XP Service Pack 2 release."

Here's the punchline: according to Ben Fathi, corporate vice president of development with Microsoft's Windows Core Operating System Division, "It's too early for me to talk about it," with "it" referring to the coolest new feature in the next version of Windows. He goes on to say:

"We're going to look at a fundamental piece of enabling technology. Maybe its hypervisors, I don't know what it is," he said. "Maybe it's a new user interface paradigm for consumers."

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