Microsoft: Why we are not talking about Windows 7 yet

It is clear since day one that Microsoft is using a different approach to communicating Windows 7. One could say they are extremely tight-lipped and do not reveal more than necessary to the public which includes online and offline press. The approach is not without risks and one of the greatest is that not saying anything about a new operating system leaves room for speculations, rumors and fake news like those fake Windows 7 Videos on Youtube.

Chris Flores is explaining in a blog post entitled Communicating Windows 7 why Microsoft is using this approach for their next operating system:

So, why the change in approach? We know that when we talk about our plans for the next release of Windows, people take action. As a result, we can significantly impact our partners and our customers if we broadly share information that later changes. With Windows 7, we’re trying to more carefully plan how we share information with our customers and partners. This means sharing the right level of information at the right time depending on the needs of the audience. For instance, several months ago we began privately sharing our preliminary plans for Windows 7 with software and hardware partners who build on the Windows platform. This gave them an opportunity to give us feedback and gave us the opportunity to incorporate their input into our plans. As the product becomes more complete, we will have the opportunity to share our plans more broadly.

One aspect that Chris forgot to mention though is the public perception of Windows Vista. Many Windows XP users do not feel that it is necessary to change to Windows Vista yet and an announcement that Windows 7 would be faster, better looking, more secure and coming out in the near future would definitely have an impact on their decision. The lack of information prevents that users make that decision based on the next Microsoft operating system.

As I said earlier not speaking about Windows 7 will inevitably lead to false rumors and Chris responds to the rumor that Windows 7 will make use of a new kernel.

Contrary to some speculation, Microsoft is not creating a new kernel for Windows 7. Rather, we are refining the kernel architecture and componentization model introduced in Windows Vista. While these changes will increase our engineering agility, they will not impact the user experience or reduce application or hardware compatibility. In fact, one of our design goals for Windows 7 is that it will run on the recommended hardware we specified for Windows Vista and that the applications and devices that work with Windows Vista will be compatible with Windows 7.

Last but not least he clears the confusing three years after Windows Vista statement by Bill Gates when asked about the release of the Microsoft operating system. Windows Vista was released on January 30, 2007 to the general public which would mean that the release date of Windows 7 will be most likely in the first quarter of 2010.

We are well into the development process of Windows 7, and we’re happy to report that we’re still on track to ship approximately three years after the general availability of Windows Vista. As always, we will be releasing early builds of Windows 7 prior to its general availability as a means to gain feedback, but we’re not yet ready to discuss timing and specific plans for any Beta releases. In the meantime, customers can confidently continue with their Windows Vista deployment plans.

It obviously is just an estimation and anyone working in IT knows that things sometimes happen that impact a release date dramatically. As of know this is the only information that we got.