Windows 7 Coming This Holiday Season

Ever since the hate on Vista erupted, Microsoft has been working on their new OS called Windows 7. It was only but a few months ago that I posted some reviews on this incredibly revolutionary product. Now, we know that Windows 7 is in fact coming out this same year that the beta was released.

Microsoft Senior Vice President Bill Veghte said in an interview, "We are tracking well to a Windows 7 holiday". While suspicions existed previously that Windows 7 would be aiming for a 2009 Holiday Season launch, Microsoft had refused to confirm it, especially learning from the delays and issues with Vista.

Even since the beta version came out, bloggers and testers were screaming for Windows 7 to be released immediately as is.
With this confirmation, Veghte said that Microsoft has seen a lot of cooperation with its partners as well as good feedback from testers. It seems that they now believe Windows 7 to be almost ready for a launch, at least enough to commit to a launch in time for this holiday season.

It seems that everybody already wants to get their hands on Windows 7 now. Luckily they won't have to wait much longer.

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Microsoft cuts jobs in cutting-edge profitable strategy

It was just this morning that Microsoft released their earnings report for the second quarter ahead of schedule. Originally, they were supposed to release the report later today, but they came out with the report and have announced a job cut of 5000 positions. It seems that the rumors about a 17% job cut were in fact wrong, but Microsoft has indeed suffered slightly in this depressing economy.
Yesterday, I wrote a post on how Microsoft couldn't possibly lay off 17% of its workforce, and it appears that I was slightly correct, and also slightly wrong.

While Microsoft has blasted ahead with profits from its Xbox division, and sustained profits from many other divisions while retaining investment, they too have suffered from the bleak economy. Due to businesses and consumers cutting their spending, Microsoft's Windows sales have been going down, and caused Microsoft's earnings per share to be $0.02 lower than analysts' expectations.
Microsoft managed to obtain slight revenue growth, despite the economic conditions. Throughout this quarter, Microsoft has showcased plenty of new software innovations and continued to invest in new products. From what we can see, although Microsoft was affected, they will continue investing in the long term, and has practically 0 chance of failing.

I said yesterday that it was highly unlikely for Microsoft to really cut massive amounts of jobs, however, the figure of 5000 jobs is still slightly disturbing. But Microsoft also says that they will continue to hire more, so in actuality the amount of workforce they are reducing is about 3000 positions. 1400 jobs will be cut immediately, and the rest will follow over an 18 month period. From my opinion, Microsoft has made an excellent choice. Cutting 1400 jobs right now will help them to sustain profits in the short term. Meanwhile, cutting the rest over a long period of 18 months will help Microsoft to make themselves more profitable, while keeping less staff. The announced hiring by Microsoft will also help Microsoft continue their position as the industry leader, because Microsoft definitely has enough cash to invest aggressively in new products, while competitors are in weaker positions. Microsoft should take this time to invest heavily in their existing product lines, and invest more into their new ventures. Even though in the short term they may have a lot of spending to do, this will undoubtedly put them in far better position in the long run.
The strategy Microsoft should take right now is to invest in products, while cutting down on marketing and other similar expenses. Microsoft doesn't have to market its products heavily right now, because there are far less people trying to buy new things, but they should resume heavy marketing as soon as the economy lights up just a little, and especially when they release Windows 7. From what Microsoft has done so far, it appears they are following this strategy quite well.

An interesting fact I noticed was that Microsoft started their massive advertising campaign just before and during the start of the major depression we're experiencing right now. Whether this was intended or not, this definitely helps Microsoft, by having marketed right before the depression, and not many other companies will be advertising during or even a little after, thus, Microsoft has gained an advantage here. Plus, from what I can tell, the use of Seinfeld in the ads while the ads weren't exactly perfect, may also contribute to reminding customers of Microsoft during dark times. It's unlikely for other companies to start massive ad campaigns during the depression, so as customers go through the depression, they will be reminded of Microsoft's ads that don't necessarily target Microsoft products in general. Then Microsoft can resume mass advertising after the depression and continue their marketing without further problems.

The outlook for Microsoft is highly positive over the next few years, from my point of view, seeing as Windows 7 is a huge improvement from Vista, and will ultimately net Microsoft some serious cash. Then, with their strategy in place, Microsoft will be in a strong position as they emerge from the depression. The only problem is we don't know how long the economic turmoil will last, so the rebound may take quite a while, and outlast the release of Windows 7. But I'm confident that customers will be itching to get Windows 7 regardless of the economy, after what happened with Vista's image (even though it wasn't all that bad as an OS).

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No way Microsoft is laying off 17% workforce

Recently the rumors have escalated enormously concerning whether Microsoft would be laying off 17% of their workforce. The FudZilla blog was the one who originally reported this outrageous rumor, and some other blogs/news sites claimed to have confirmed it and/or predict the same.
Very soon, Microsoft will be releasing its earnings report, and that's what has caused all these rumors to spike, in discussion of exactly how much Microsoft has been impacted by the depression.

Now, first of all, Microsoft has been barely affected considering some of the problems in other industries and companies. Seriously, Microsoft has a huge $19Bil + in their bank, no wonder they don't have that many problems. If anything, they're probably trying to take advantage of the issues currently in its competitors, and attempting to improve themselves.
I highly doubt Microsoft profits will have gone down by a large margin, albeit it will have been affected somewhat, considering that consumers are no longer buying as much, and businesses will not be investing as much either. However, the nature of their business causes many businesses and consumers to continue purchasing their products even during a downturn in the economy.
Microsoft most likely has weathered the economic problems so far much better off than other companies, and I believe they will exceed analyst expectations in terms of earnings and profits. Unlike other companies, Microsoft has continued to invest in new products and research to develop new product lines or continue old product lines. They have also improved various existing betas and services. In fact, you can even see the vast list of beta applications and platforms they have available on their Microsoft Connect website. Just this past half of 2008 and now 2009, Microsoft released beta versions of notable products including Internet Explorer 8 Public Beta 2, Windows Live Essentials, Windows 7, Windows SDK and others. It's obvious that Microsoft isn't going to stop their R&D anytime soon, nor are they cutting back on expenditures by a large margin.
Also taking a look at Xbox 360's enormous success this holiday season compared with other products during the recession we've experienced, Microsoft still holds major advantages and they are complying with customer demands for cheaper products, while sustaining viability and increasing market to defeat the competition. Plus, I think Microsoft is in excellent position to take maximum advantage of the depression with the release of Windows 7. From my experience, Windows 7 is already fine and ready to go whenever Microsoft wants. All they're looking for is some feedback and perhaps minor bug fixes.
With Windows 7's massive performance upgrade and improvement from Vista's issues, most customers can't wait for getting their hands on Windows 7. Especially now that there's a depression going on which might last quite a while, Microsoft's plan to market cheaper products will definitely help them. Customers no longer desire expensive computers as much as before, so many are getting the low-cost laptops/desktops with as much performance as they can pack without upping the price. Thus, Microsoft's Windows 7 improvements allow them to be in excellent position to market to these customers and will ultimately make Windows 7 highly successful, as well as get rid of Vista's tainted brand.

In such a situation where their money is plentiful, having tiny debt compared to their vast reserves of capital, and where they are in a great position to be marketing and creating new products, they can't possibly be seeking to downsize by 17%. that rumor is absolutely outrageous. While it may be true that Microsoft has slowed on hiring, that's just a part of the way a depression works. Nobody wants to overspend during such times because you never know when it'll really end. Microsoft may be looking at small layoffs in certain sections that aren't proving to be profitable, in the manner that they have always used to deal with economic issues. I highly doubt they will engage in massive company wide layoffs, unless they think they can become even more profitable, in which case I still doubt the layoffs will be as large as 17%, because such numbers are generally only shown by companies in serious debt and are failing in some way. This is one of the most profitable companies in the world that we're talking about here, and they have practically no debt, while their cash reserves are enormous.

Obviously, Microsoft isn't going to lay off 17% of their work force, but only time will tell, and we will find out their situation as the earnings report comes in. I feel inclined to believe their earnings may have increased, rather than slowed down.

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Windows 7: AMAZING and REVOLUTIONARY! Part B

It was just a while ago that the Windows 7 beta was publicly released on Microsoft's website.
The new Windows 7 beta is truly revolutionary in that it enormously improves the good points of Vista, and adds so much more for the average user, and also for business users. This time aorund, Microsoft has focused their software on making it easy to use, performance based, and just more effective in all aspects of use, without interfering with other software or tasks.

In Part A of the Review of Windows 7: Amazing and Revolutionary, I explained just the tip of the iceberg of what's new and improved in Windows 7.
Now, this is Part B of the review. This will conclude my review of Windows 7.

Windows Explorer and Libraries
Another major feature of Windows 7, is the new library system, which adds to the functionality and management of various files, and as I already explained, it is integrated with Windows Media Player, and media files.
Windows Explorer has gone through a massive face lift, and the graphics are much better than before, with less clutter and provides easier access to the items you need.
With the addition of Libraries, we no longer have to rely solely on Search, indexes, or going to long file paths to file specific directories. With the power of libraries, you can manage several locations at once by accessing your library, including different places, drives, and other computers on your network. It definitely makes finding files and managing files easy to use and more effective. It saves you a lot of time when you need to remember where you last stored your file or such, because all you need is to set up the library, and access all your files from there later, notwithstanding where the file actually is.
These libraries can definitely be taken advantage of in other applications, as shown by the use of it in Windows Media Player.

The above is an image of what libraries look like and the new interface for explorer, with HomeGroup also visible, from the Windows 7 Blog.

The TaskBar
Wow, this is really next generation right here! The old taskbar is gone, and it's replaced by an amazing graphical taskbar that utilizes very effective all the space available. See it and you'll understand what I mean:

The Windows 7 team has definitely put some good effort into this taskbar, and I really like using it. There's no more of the old text, it looks well in place with the rest of the screen, and feels soothing to the eye. As well, the preview has been changed slightly to fit as well. These previews are now also clickable, with a title and icon at the top, and if you mouse over it, a close button appears.
Then we have the awesome Aero Peek, which lets you "peek" at the windows you mouse over the thumbnails of! Everything else then fades away, and you can also do this with the control button to show the desktop. This is definitely cooler than what Vista had, and deserves praise.

Next up is the addition of Jumplists which hasn't been fully taken advantage of yet, but provides efficient clicking and access to files when it is taken advantage of. Microsoft Office Word is able to make use of it, by showing recent files. You can access this menu just by right-clicking.

For some programs, toolbars are also accessible via the preview:

This makes using your media players much more effective, and you don't have to have the program as active to do something quickly.

To top it off, another cool feature is the ability to show the progress bar on the icons!

I don't care what the Windows 7 Team Says, this new taskbar is REVOLUTIONARY!

HomeGroup
This is another of the great new features available in Windows 7, and I've already mentioned it several times. This, like many of the other features, are integrated with Windows 7, and all the other features newly available. With HomeGroup, setting up a network is easy as 1,2,3!
At the end of the windows 7 installtion, it asks you whether or not you want to set up or join a HomeGroup. As technology advanced, networks are bound to become increasingly popular, and HomeGroup is one of those features that makes good use of networks, by sharing various content available via libraries and media content and even documents if one wishes to share those. This allows all members of the HomeGroup to easily access material, without the hassle of setting up specific directories and all the small details.
In setting up HomeGroup, te Windows 7 Team decided to apply a create a random default password on set up, because it apparently

In testing, this concept raised quite a bit of alarm with people. It seems that most people generally have 1 or 2 passwords that they use for all their online or offline activities. When asked to input a user password for their HomeGroup, they gravitated towards using one of those, and then reacted with alarm when they realized that this password needs to be shared with other users in the home! People generally reacted better to the auto-generated password, since they knew to write it down and hand it around. The other interesting benefit we got from this was a reduction in the amount of time people would spend on the UI that introduced them to the HomeGroup concept. With a user-generated password, they had to grasp the HomeGroup concept, think about what password to set, and decide whether to accept the shared libraries default. Without having to provide a password, people had more time to understand HomeGroup, and their sharing decision - leading to a much more streamlined, private, and secure design.

With a default password, one can still change it in control panel, but it seems to be more effective to use a default random password.

In windows explorer, there are also options readily available, (as shown by one of the graphics above), to easily share your files on HomeGroup.
There's just one little drawback to HomeGroup, and it's that it seems to be a feature only available to Windows 7. That means that in order to take advantage of all the benefits of HomeGroup, one will have to upgrade Vista or XP. Perhaps some features of HomeGroup could be applied in later service packs to Vista, because if that doesn't happen, we can easily see how many people will not be happy about it.

Performance
With Windows 7, I have to say, this is one of the things that most people are going to love! I can tell you right now, that Windows 7 performs faster and responds faster than both XP and Vista. While in my opinion Vista was already very fast (the graphics make it "appear" slower), Windows 7 is what speed is all about. All the standards for massive RAM and processing power is gone, replaced with much lower requirements, and still be able to run lightning fast, including faster boot times, opening of applications, etc.
A note on the comparison some people tend to make with Mac's super fast boot:
Windows 7 seems to be getting much closer to instant-boot, with all the effectiveness of using the registry and start-up configurations, unlike mac OS. It fully takes advantage of all the raw power available, while still allowing for the use of start-up programs, registry settings on start-up, other boot settings, etc.
The only tiny drawback here, isn't really a drawback, but it's more related to a graphics animation issue which some people will love, and others hate. When you try to move windows around, there's an issue that appears to be lag, but is actually not, because the response time is superb, but the animation makes it look as if dragging windows around is laggy.
It doesn't stop there either, because there's also been a boost in regards to gaming and graphics performance. Plus, Windows 7 comes with energy saving capabilities that also use energy more efficiently while providing maximum performance.

Windows 7 is undoubtedly a huge improvement.

Touch
I don't know if this will be a strong selling point for a lot of people, as I personally don't find it extremely enticing, possibly because I prefer just using normal computers. However, they have implemented a multi-touch system that people with touchscreens are bound to enjoy. It seems all the new gadgets these days involve the use of touch screen, althought touch screen technology itself isn't all that new or complicated.
There's nothing extremely special or helpful about the touchscreen capabilities, but I suppose it is a step in the direction of more modern machines. Although, I don't see how it would increase productivity, and probably isn't a huge deal to most users of the PC.

Conclusion
In conclusion, I will say that Windows 7 is absolutely amazing and although the windows 7 team won't admit it, it is revolutionary. While it doesn't rework the main parts of the windows platform, it builds on existing Vista base, and improvements a lot of functionality, adds new features, taking out many bugs, increase performance, and is certainly a very worthwhile upgrade from Vista. I can honestly say that Windows 7, even in its beta form will please many users of the PC, on their wait for the next amazing Operating System.
I think you'll agree with me strongly on this point, just try it out.

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Windows 7: AMAZING and REVOLUTIONARY! Part A

Many years ago, Microsoft released an Operating System Called Windows XP, but it wasn't received very well in the beginning. As time went on, people realized the true power of XP, and it became increasingly popular, until it was used by practically everyone. Then Vista came out, and it was the turning point in software for Microsoft. After massive changes to the core of the Operating system, they came out with a highly advanced operating system, but with many problems that are typical of a new revolutionary technology that hasn't been perfected.

With Vista, many improvements were provided that were also filled with bugs, or rather, certain features that many people didn't like, even though it made Vista better than more secure. Due to the annoyance of these features, and the negative propaganda Vista received even though it was a great software that everybody bought and liked (that's right, most users liked it! If people really didn't like it, then they would've asked for a refund or something, instead of complaining on the Internet, which demonstrates that they liked it and are hoping Microsoft will further improve it.)

Now, Windows 7 Beta has just been publicly released, and it is one big step up from Vista. It is a revolutionary product and it certainly multiplys the effectiveness of Vista's basis, and adds more features that make the operating system easier to use, more efficient, betting looking, and just overall, better. It makes what was already a great operating system, into an amazing operating system!

Windows 7 reduces the memory and resource usage of Vista, and brings the best features while tuning up everything to what most computers want. Let's take a look at some of the highlights of Windows 7 and some of the not so good points.

Setup and Device/Driver Installation
If you didn't know it beforehand, you might've thought you were installing another version of Vista, when you install Windows 7. There's nothing special about the set-up process except the new boot screen, and the new HomeGroup setup, which we'll talk about later.
It seems that with the coming of Vista and Windows 7, drivers are found by the OS extremely fast. With XP, sometimes you had to go looking for specific drivers, but Vista and now Windows 7 gets them immediately, and you barely have to do anything. It finds drivers by itself.
What's interesting about manging devices and drivers, is that 7 now provides a feature called Devices and Printers. The old Device manager is still available, but this new features seems to be better looking, and possibly more user friendly than device managers. According to Paul Thurrot, it's also more advanced. It may be able to fix certain issues Device manager cannot, and makes fixing those issues easier with the GUI. However, the use of this feature may be limited, seeing as Windows 7 gets and installs most or all drivers without the need of user interference.

Preloaded Apps
I have to say, there's two words that can be said about this, and those are, COOL, and AWWW.
First off, it seems many applications work on Windows 7 that work on either Vista or XP, so that's a good sign, but basically all of them either don't take advantage of Windows 7's new features, or has minor bugs with one or two of them. What's cool is the new Windows Media Player, with lots of new codecs to support many types of files, and the slick design which is much simpler and no longer overcrowded. As well, Windows Media Player is integrated with Libraries so you can load all your media files in one place. You access these libraries in the same way whether you're using WMP, Explorer, or the new Media Center. More on Libraries later.

That's a picture from the windows 7 blog, showing a more simplistic design.

This is a picture of the new and improved Windows Media Center, which you can use HomeGroup to share media, and even stream recorded-TV(non DRM).

Moving on to the AWWW, well, a huge drawkback here is that some of the usually prepacked apps are no longer bundled with Windows 7, such as Windows Mail, photo managing, etc.
WHY??? Those apps were great, easy to use, and didn't require downloading! Has Microsoft been the victim of anti-trust lawsuits that actually WORKED so far? NO! That's because bundling these products is perfectly legitimate, and most people prefer having it this way! Want proof? Just look at IE's market share, even though it's kind of really horrible.

However, the apps that are still there have definitely improved a lot, has cool graphics, and continues the Vista style.

This ends Part A of the Windows 7 Review. In part B, we'll take a look at some other features, and Windows 7's overall improvements.

Update: Part B of the Review is now available.

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Windows 7 Beta Publicly Released and Available

After a public offering filled with problems, I decided to wait until everything was fine on their website to announce the release of Microsoft's highly anticipated Windows 7 Beta.
Originally planned to be released a while ago, it was pushed until just yesterday, but they had server problems, and many users were unable to download it.

Now, everything seems to be working fine, so this seems to be a great time to announce the official release of Microsoft's Windows 7 Beta.
To try it out for yourself, go here.
On their site, they offer some instructions and specifications on how to install this new beta. Hopefully it'll turn out to be a powerful new operating system. It's unlikely to be revolutionary however, seeing as Microsoft has already made large changes in the transition from XP to Vista, so this will likely be a powerful upgrade to Vista's existing new features, to make sure everything runs smoothly and better.

I'll have a concise and to the point review posted up later, to give you an idea of what's in store and what I think about Windows 7.
Update: Here's the Part A of the Review on Windows 7: Amazing and Revolutionary
Update 2: Here's the Part B of the Review on Windows 7: Amazing and Revolutionary

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