Well there has been lots of speculation on the internet and blogosphere about the name and version of the next version of Windows. We have seen some leaked screen shots and videos later to be determined to be fake of some early builds as well as some conceptual drawings of some versioning UX designs, but as we all know, what we see in conception is not what we see in the final product. Chris Flores is clearing the air with an announcement on the Windows Vista blog that yes there is a new version of Windows 7, but not much else, which I think is a good thing because it won’t raise people expectations and when features are not delivered people are disappointed. I think taking a page of Apple’s tight lip policy of not making any official announcements works and people go nuts when they see something for the first time and are able to purchase it right away with out any waiting, loosing that initial “gotta have it now euphoria” of having to have the latest and the greatest. Microsoft wants to achieve a middle ground between transparancy and keeping the kimono closed and are aiming toward translucency, revealing enought to get excited, but leaving enough hidden to really bring the Wow! factor instead of disappointment that many consumers felt with Windows Vista as features got cut and build deadlines were extended. They are aiming to release the Operating system in a 2 year time frame leveraging some of the exisiting groundwork established by Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.
I thought I would spend a minute giving you an update on where we are. First, yes, we are working on a new version of Windows. As you likely know, it’s called Windows 7.We are always looking for new ways to deliver great experiences for our customers. This is especially true of Windows - where we’re constantly examining trends in hardware, software and services to ensure that we continue to drive the innovation that has both made Windows the world’s most popular operating system and has provided a foundation on which our partners built great products and businesses. When we shipped Windows 2000, we were already working on Windows XP and we started working on Windows Vista even before we released Windows XP. So naturally, we’ve been thinking about the investments we made in Windows Vista and how we can build on these for the next version of Windows….
Another question we often get asked is whether Windows 7 is a major release. The answer is “yes” — it’s hard to describe any product that is used by millions of people and worked on by thousands of engineers as anything else. That said, the long-term architectural investments we introduced in Windows Vista and then refined for Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 will carry forward in Windows 7. Windows Vista established a very solid foundation, particularly on subsystems such as graphics, audio, and storage. Windows Server 2008 was built on that foundation and Windows 7 will be as well. 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.
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…
Steven Sinofsky, Windows and Windows Live Engineering SVP revelead a bit more in an interview done by one of my favorite interviewers cNet’s Ina Fried
Last year, Sinofsky penned a blog to his Windows unit co-workers, explaining his public silence and urging them to follow his lead.”I know many folks think that this type of corporate ‘clamp down’ on disclosure is ‘old school’ and that in the age of corporate transparency we should be open all the time,” Sinofsky wrote. “Corporations are not really transparent. Corporations are translucent. All organizations have things that are visible and things that are not.”
Well, Sinofsky is breaking his public silence, slightly, to offer a few important details about 7 (he reiterated that it is coming by January 2010) and to explain why he is saying so little publicly.
In an exclusive interview with CNET News.com last week, Sinofsky talked about how the new version of Windows is designed to build on top of Vista’s architectural changes without adding things like new driver models that can increase compatibility challenges…Let me just end with this. Look, we’re working–the team is working super, super hard on this release of Windows, and you have to imagine we’d really be excited to start showing it to people. We want to show it, and we want people to get their hands on it, but we want to do that under the umbrella of being responsible members of the ecosystem, and being respectful of people’s time and energy and the work that they’ll put in to making Windows 7 great from the work that they can do.
So, why don’t we say we’re on target for the three years after general availability (of Vista), we’re very excited about the release that we have, and we’re very focused on promising and delivering.
I just hope they tackle the backward’s compatability issue head on, it’s been OK, but could be much better and would allow all their customers to move forward even with legacy applications if they make Virtual PC part of the kernal and allow Windows 7 to actual run applications in a VM sandboxing the base OS and rest of the work environment. I hope they move in this direction along with more connectivity to the cloud inline with their online services bringing them all together.
Can’t wait to see what comes next! 
