Windows 7 release dates
Over the past couple of days the Internet has been filled with speculation that Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system would be released around mid-2009, a significant step forward from Microsoft’s public statements that it would be released in early 2010.
A number of websites are reporting rumours that a Windows 7 Release Candidate is expected to be released in April, probably around the 10th. If that proves to be true then a June or July final release seems to be a good bet.
Although the company hasn’t announced any formal release dates yet, Microsoft has said that it is expecting to release Windows 7 three years after Vista. That operating system was released to manufacturing (RTM) on November 8 2006 and released to retail on January 30 2007. A release date of June 2009 for Windows 7 would put Microsoft well ahead of schedule.
Reason to rush
A June release date, however, is quite likely given existing conditions. On the one hand, the Windows 7 beta release was successful and won positive reviews from most users. The Windows 7 beta release also proved to be full-featured and, most importantly, stable. A release candidate in April, three months after the beta, would make sense as it will have given Microsoft enough time to integrate changes and fixes.
But there are other reasons that Microsoft is likely to push its release dates forward and one of those is netbooks. Although the company is not about to publicly state it, Vista was a failure on netbooks leaving it with only XP to fill the gap. It is a gap Microsoft will be wanting to fill with something better suited to the task but in the interim risks losing market share to Linux.
Although Linux has nowhere near the market share on netbooks that Microsoft has, a Linux distribution such as Ubuntu has one distinct advantage: speed. The next release of Ubuntu Linux will be in April and the one after that, October. If Microsoft waits until January next year to release Windows 7 there will already have been two Ubuntu releases in the same time, each with progressively better features.
It’s a risky proposition. No doubt Microsoft feels confident in its currently substantial market share but it won’t want to be risking that with a bad decision.
The wise thing would be to produce a release candidate sooner rather than later and a final release before the competition gets in a second stab.
Windows 7 release dates – discussion
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