Windows 7

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is confident about Windows 7. But he’s nowhere near as outwardly cocky about the business prospects for the operating system as he and other Microsoft execs were with previous Windows releases.

Windows Vista never was particularly speedy in most people's eyes. Whether it deserved the reputation or not, the word on the street was that Vista was both slow and bloated.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer put on his sales hat Tuesday and made a case for why businesses should upgrade to Windows 7, despite an economy in which many IT budgets have been frozen or are lower than in years past.

As far as the great majority of users are concerned, Windows Vista was the greatest flop in Microsoft history and few points of view dare to contradict this.

Microsoft has been pushing Windows 7 as greener than Vista or XP, designed with a variety of energy-saving options for both IT administrators and end users. At the same time, the software giant has been pursuing internal green IT initiatives such as ultraefficient server farms. But even with efficiency tools integrated into Windows 7, how much can an operating system lower IT's overall carbon footprint?

Lenovo Group Ltd. is staking an early claim to potentially key turf in the Windows 7 gold rush: The PC vendor boasts it has the fastest boot-up and shutdown times.

Microsoft announced that they have removed the netbook restrictions that previously prevented OEM and ODM from installing any version of Windows 7 on their netbook.

There are those who believe Windows 7 doesn't need selling. As long as reviewers continue to suggest that it is a fine, fine thing, then people will gravitate towards it as they buy their (much cheaper than Mac) PCs.

A system builder (a k a, a custom PC maker) told TechFlash this week that Microsoft had OK’d folks offering custom PCs to start shipping Windows 7 systems more than a week ahead of the official launch, which is  October 22.

We’ll see how that goes….

DESPITE MICROSOFT'S and manufacturers' hopes that Windows 7 will kick-start hardware sales, it looks like PC sales will not increase until next year.