our company is currently testing new versions of our products on top of Windows 7, which is scheduled to be released to market next year 2010. this had given me a chance to have a feel-of-use of this new Windows version to be.
my first impression was - "it looks almost the same as Vista". yes, the GUI is based on Vista with some minor modifications like the task bar which seems to be "Mac-like" a bit. for a heavy XP user like me, i think i won't be switching to Windows 7 when it will be released; unless the GUI has be more near XP-tic...
"will W7 do a good sell out next year compare to Vista" had been a topic of discussions with several of my IT related friends. some are pretty optimistic that it will. but personally, i doubt... i think it will follow Vista's path. why? here are my thoughts about this.
1. hardware requirements
compared to the HW requirements of its XP predecessor, W7 has almost the same system requirements for an installation. this implies that if you're an XP user now, your machine might not be able to cater to this OS' needs. some hardwares like audio or video might not have any driver releases for these new OS. so buying the OS alone won't be enough; you'll need to invest on a new hardware also.
2. GUI modifications
one main reason why Vista did not sell to its existing users is that the GUI were largely modified. too much abstraction like the UAC and used-to-there icons and shortcuts were moved to other locations. this had made a decrease in productivity of the existing XP users considering that they have to search where or ask some one. rather than forcing it's users to use the new GUI, MS should be giving choices to users on to which kind of GUI he would like to use - Vista-tic one or XP-tic one... If MS could incorporate it classic XP GUI into W7 as a selectable alternate GUI inside the system, i think many XP users will be moving into W7 gradually - changing its system from XP-tic configuration to W7 or Vista-tic like configuration on a step by step basis.
3. net/mobile pc trend
nowadays, mobile users are increasing with the spread of wifi accessibility on public places. netbooks are getting popular and i think it will overtake the number of desktop and laptop users in 3-4 years from now considering its attractive price! most netbooks however are very limited in terms of system extensibility. Windows ULCPC Windows XP Home EOM licensing was revised to limit the hardware capability of the PC like to only support 1GB of RAM. MS is trying to divert users wanting netbooks of higher capability to buy laptop (now generally is pre-installed with Vista) rather than a netbook. again another strategy to make Vista sell out.
4. new software versions
whenever there's a new Windows version, application softwares relying on the programming interfaces provided by the OS should make sure their application works on that platform. due to the underlying architectural changes, most existing softwares will not work on top of a new Windows OS version. thus if you buy a program which used to work on XP, it might not work on Vista. this implies that you will need to buy new application software versions which are compatible with the newer Windows7 OS platform. in short, you'll need to invest on new software versions too...
so what's the catch! now that you know what kind of new investments are necessary if you'll be switching to a new OS, you better have to think twice before getting one.
if you're not "financially" ready to make a new investment for another computer, OS and softwares, i would suggest that you stick to your current PC until the time of real-necessity arises. this subtle new investment requirement is actually the main hurdle which W7 has to get rid off the way.
