A friend sent along this note which points out some various positive points about ‘Windows 7’. It is a microcosm of everything that was wrong with Windows Vista’s marketing effort. To be fair, the marketing folks didn’t have much to work with in Vista, but still.
I recall going to the big launch party for the 2007 products and while the presenter (Matt Hester as I recall) had a lot of nice, informative things to say about Exchange 2007 and Office 2007, when it came to Vista all he had were second rate versions of features that appeared on Macs years ago, and a refresh of the video games that come packed with Windows. In hindsight he had to know that Vista was a weak link in his presentation, especially when he’s giving a prolonged speech to an auditorium full of tech professionals about the new graphic schemes for Minesweeper.
Windows 7 might be a slightly different beast though. I like that they’re trying to correct some of the aggravations of Vista, but let’s face it they could do that to the existing product if they cared to (though they probably won’t, thereby turning Vista into abandonware). What I do like is the fact that they’re finally cleaning up the interface and centralizing the presentation around the ‘ribbon’ which is in my opinion the best interface idea to come out of Microsoft EVER.