14 DAY TRIAL // One of the few pieces of criticism that Microsoft got for Windows 7 was related to the apparently modest plans it had for the operating system, with some calling the new OS just a minor upgrade from its precursor. Under the leadership of Steven Sinofsky, president, Windows and Windows Live Division, it was clear that the strategy for the Windows project had become underpromise and overachieve, a home run with Windows 7. Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer would undoubtedly call the work that went into Windows 7 good management of innovation.
“The saga of our Windows product is probably one of the better chronicled, and I'm sure many people went through as sort of a cycle, either at home or at work, with our Vista product. Just not executed well, not the product itself, but we went a gap of about five, six years without a product,” he stated during the Microsoft CEO Summit 2010 in Redmond earlier this week. (via Seattle PI)
“I think back now and I think about thousands of man years, and it wasn't because we were wrong-minded in thinking bad thoughts and not pushing innovation. We tried too big a task, and in the process wound up losing essentially thousands of man years, of innovation capabilities. And so a discipline and an execution around the innovation process I think is essential,” Ballmer added.
As far as I’m concerned, when Ballmer says Microsoft aimed too high with Windows Vista, he doesn’t mean only Windows 7’s predecessor, as it was launched in January 2007. Instead, he is referring to the work done in the years that separated the release of Windows XP from that of Vista. Some of you might still remember that, following XP’s availability, Microsoft started work on codename Longhorn.
Those that watched Microsoft closely, and especially the evolution of Longhorn, know that the software giant rebooted its plans for the new Windows client in 2004, dumping a range of features among which WinFS, a new storage and management system that didn’t make it into Vista. Following the reboot, Vista started shaping up, with the label announced officially on August 3, 2005, after which a range of Beta and Release Candidate builds were unleashed, none of which really cured Longhorn melancholies, not even the RTM.
“It turns out one of the things I think I have most come to appreciate over the last two, three years is that, in fact, there is an aspect of R&D and innovation that's just an execution game. That if you have smart people they will do something innovative, as long as you hold them to task of executing in some kind of reliable way, it won't provide the vision for something that is entirely new, but it will provide beauty and improvement in a lot of ways,” Ballmer said.
Then, there are the various issues that plagued Vista after launch, poor performance, device driver incompatibilities, lack of software and hardware support, etc. Windows 7 is, in this regard, in a different league than its predecessor, polished, fast, compatible, enjoying plenty of support. Still, it was Vista that paved the way for Windows 7. Fingers crossed for Windows 8 to follow in the footsteps of Windows 7. And, in this respect, Ballmer’s words also confirm that users won’t have to wait six years after the release of Windows 7 for the next generation of Windows.
Microsoft Windows 7 90-Day Eval VHD is available for download here.
Another Windows 7 RTM Enterprise 90-Day Evaluation is available for download here.