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ZDNet's Ed Bott (whom I assisted many moons ago in getting Special Edition Using Windows Me out the door), is cautiously optimistic about what the start of the E7 blog means for how Windows 7 is doing:
The fact that [Sinofsky]’s willing to speak now (and promise to post “regularly” means, I suspect, that Windows 7 is about to hit a major milestone. The other announcement in that kickoff post confirms that this is the opening salvo in a publicity campaign that we’ll hear much more about this fall, beginning at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference, to be held in Los Angeles October 26-30, and the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, scheduled for the following week.
Another ZDNetter, Mary Jane Foley, isn't expecting much from E7:
While I think it’s admirable that Microsoft finally plans to start talking in any way at all about the next version of Windows client, I have to admit I’m a tad skeptical about how much or how deeply Sinofsky and DeVaan plan to do so.
The Channel Register (part of UK's The Register) shares her skepticism, but points out this potential benefit of the blog:
So, the blog – which is undoubtedly heavily edited by a team of PRs – could serve as a useful stick to beat Microsoft with if it fails to deliver the goods on time and transparently.
With over 190 comments already posted, E7's already getting some serious traffic.
So, what do you think? Will E7 give us a better view inside the Windows 7 development process, or is it simply PR from Redmond? Click Comments and tell us what you think!
Illustration courtesy of ArsTechnica.
Comments are closed on this article
bob818
August 17, 2008 at 6:35am
I think windows 7 will be an awesome os. Microsoft SHOULD take into consideration all of the problems with vista and correct them...we hope. Microsoft just pushes software out too fast and does not spend enough time in the development phase. It's a love-hate relationship.
Keith E. Whisman
August 17, 2008 at 3:20pm
Vista was in developement for like Five years. If that's not a long time then I don't know what is.
jwalch.hawk
August 16, 2008 at 12:34am
Their slogan is so brief, yet really powerful if they do it: "Promise and deliver"
Many, many, many, many, many... Many companies (especially large ones) are hesitent to promise much of anything, largely the fault of overzealous PR folks. If MS makes substantial promises, that will be worth noting.
And delivering those promises. Not falling short and making excuses or making promises that they'll fix it and actually turn it into something better than they had originally planned (a PR trick near and dear to my own heart), but doing exactly what they said they would and when they promised it.
These things sound very easy to do, but history has shown that large companies often get themselves caught up in red tape doing it. It's a really good ideal.
But can MS do it?
I think it's fair to say that we all ultimately would love for Windows to develop a kickass product, particularly for Windows 7. So I'll stand here on the sidelines on Team Cautiously Optimistic.
mikeart03a
August 15, 2008 at 9:59pm
Why am I not surprised to see a MS blog pop up about the development of Win7? A good number of major companies are launching their own blogs to keep in touch with customers, but this can also be their own death knell if they were to delay he release...
- mike_art03a
IT Technician
Gov't of Canada
RGCook
August 15, 2008 at 6:01pm
I see this as a way for MS to provide a sort of antithetic Vista campaign. Meaning, promise little, communicate honest pieces of truth and release beyond expectation set.
Anyway you look at it, its a means of promotion. That's its marked with doubt by the same mainstream pundits that pumped Vista and set the stage for its anti-climactic release, I find a bit ironic.
Bob Cook
Montgomery, TX
nerdzilla1130
August 15, 2008 at 8:31pm
people need to stop throwing stones at vista and look back to the begginings of xp.
glamours it was not, less function than most would have hoped, but look where we are now, they are pushing windows 7 out the door to quickly and are probbaly gonna have another windows me on their hands.
vista will work by service pack 2, give it time.
most windows operating systems are like problem chilldern, you just gotta know how to man-handle them.
Cache
August 16, 2008 at 6:04am
Until they find a way to cut some of the bloat out, and allow Vista to run at speeds comparable to XP on games... you'll still be playing 10% behind technology that was available years ago with XP. A good OS should speed up things that I'm doing, not slow them down.
Keith E. Whisman
August 16, 2008 at 2:34pm
Windows XP was slower than Win98 when it came out. Even with fixes only faster hardware sped things up. XP was considered bloated compared to Win98. You really can't compare speeds like that. WinXP is obsolete and Vista is the current technology. It's already running at or very near the speeds that you get in games with XP. MS has released many patches and fixes and SP1. Vista is now very fast compared to XP on the same Hardware. It's no where close to being 10% slower than XP. Maybe if your running an unpatched version of Vista but now it's just as fast.
Keith E. Whisman
August 16, 2008 at 12:37am
Vista is working with SP1 I imagine that an SP2 would probable just compose of all of SP1 and all the updates from SP1 on to current. Vista is a great os. I hope that MS can add a really neat 3d desktop like what you get from Linux with the multi desktops. All you have to do is point your mouse to the right side of the screen and a new desktop flips open. I really like Linux and Hopefully MS can make something a little better. That's kinda of a wow factor for me anyhow. Vista is the best MS operating system yet. It's truely next gen and I thought that when I first got my hands on it. It is good. So quit crying about Vista.
Keith Whisman
Microsoft fanboy for life.
BaggerX
August 16, 2008 at 3:58pm
Obviously I take anything from a fanboy, even an admitted one, with a big grain of salt. Fanboys simply are not objective. I think Vista was released before it was ready. SP1 has improved things quite a bit, and most vendors have been getting better drivers out. There are still compatibility problems, especially with games. There are still a lot of bad to mediocre drivers out there. But the situation is improving. Hopefully by the time SP2 rolls around, Vista will be as stable and compatible as XP is. Hopefully they do a better job releasing Windows 7.
Keith E. Whisman
August 19, 2008 at 2:39am
You know what I really like about Vista is that it never really slows down with time like XP did. I used to have to restart XP after a little while and after a few months I had to pretty much do a clean install to get that pep back. With Vista I leave the machine on for as long as I want and play as many games as I want and the pep never disappears. Perhaps that has something to do with the way Vista handles memory.
I'm also a Linux Fanboy. Really I would'nt be a Microsoft fan if there were any other competition. Really we are talking about the visual interface that we use to interact with the hardware (or the computer). Windows Vista wins with me because it's fast, easy to use and manipulate, there are alot of software providers that provide software that is extremely easy to install and use. Vista has a very shallow learning curve where as Linus has a very steep learning curve. Linux is nice but it's alot more to learn in order to get the fullest experience that you can get from Vista with very little learning.
Mac os is not a competitor as it is expressly made and distributed for use on only Apple hardware. I can't go out and buy it and install it on my pc. It won't work or at best it won't be easy to install and even then I wont ever be able to get the full use out of it.
PhynaeusClaw
August 16, 2008 at 12:46pm
Try vista on a laptop. Every other time I bring my laptop out of hibernation it comes up with a message stating that it has recovered from an unexpected shutdown. WTF!? SP1 fixed A LOT, but it didn't fix eveything. I can only hope that Windows 7 offers something really worth upgrading for.
hackman2007
August 17, 2008 at 11:36am
I'm running Windows Vista Business with SP1 on my laptop and I don't have that problem at all.
Are you sure your laptop doesn't have a hardware problem? If it is indeed hardware, any operating system, including Windows XP, is going to give the same error.
