Microsoft's latest operating system was initially introduced to the corporate environment on November 30, 2006. Then at the end of January 2007, Windows Vista was also made available for the general public together with the Office 2007 System. And although speculations revealed that Vista would be the last mammoth operating system, Microsoft is hard at work producing the next big Windows platform, referred to as Windows Seven, after Steven Sinofsky became the senior vice president for the Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group.

Windows Seven, formerly codenamed Vienna is planned for release sometime in 2010. Microsoft has offered little additional details, except the fact that Vista won't be the last 32-bit client operating system in the same manner as Windows Server 2008. Scheduled for 2011, Vista's successor will follow some additional releases associated with the Windows platform.

By the end of this year, Microsoft will deliver the first service pack for Vista. A limited, private beta will be served to a select pool of testers and a public release is not planned at this time, but the Redmond company is aiming for a November release. Additionally Microsoft will also focus on the third service pack for Windows XP. Currently scheduled at an abstract date in the first half of 2007, Windows XP SP3 can potentially be offered by the end of this year, although this piece of information remains unconfirmed by Microsoft. In the coming year the Redmond company will update Windows Media Center with the release of Windows Fiji.

This timetable is nothing more than a set of speculations. The dates are accurate only to a point and Microsoft could shift from this path. Still, what will be interesting to see is the future releases ties to the Windows operating system in the gap between the second half of 2008 and 2010.