Microsoft to unveil Windows 7 by Xmas

Microsoft will release its new client operating system (OS) – Windows 7 – by this Christmas. The software giant had previously announced that the new software would not be ready until 2010. Windows Vista, Microsoft's current operating system launched in November 2006, was criticised for being a memory hogger and incompatible with some pre-Vista hardware and software.

Microsoft also plans to unveil Windows Azure, a cloud services operating system developed on open platform that supports both Microsoft and non-Microsoft languages and environments, by en 2009. Azure provides developers with on-demand compute and storage to host, scale and manage web applications on the Internet through Microsoft’s data centres.

Incidentally, when it launched Vista in 2006, Microsoft said it was “The Most Significant Product Launch in Microsoft's History.” Vista could never match its billing, amply evident from the fact that most people still prefer to run Windows XP on their computers.

So should one upgrade to Windows 7 when it's released? Much depends on who you are? Initial feedback on the internet suggests that those personal users still running XP (who are in the majority) will find moving up to 7 an uphill task.

Small business users without the support of an IT department also need to be careful when taking this leap.

Enterprise users are typically said to be a cautious lot and normally wait for the first service pack to appear before committing to changing operating systems. However, a couple of surveys on the net appear to suggest that they will leap enthusiastically to the new OS. One study goes as far as to suggest that of 80 IT decision makers at enterprises with more than 1000 employees questioned, 50 per cent planned to upgrade to Windows 7 as soon as it is available.

As for Windows 7 on netbooks, it's not easy to push the system the way you push a desktop since you will need more random access memory (RAM). Windows 7 takes some 7.5GB of disk space, so netbook users need to factor this. It may be advisable to wait for Windows 7 netbooks to arrive on the scene as some of these may hopefully sport 2GB of RAM.