Windows 7

While Vista may appear to be a new product to many people upgrading their 2+ year-old PC or notebook, it could already be in the golden years of its product life cycle. Word has it that Microsoft may bring the shipment of Windows 7, codenamed Vienna, forward from 2010 to next year. While Vista hasn't exactly bombed, there is a broad consensus that it has failed to deliver the goods when compared to XP. Bloatware is a term frequently used when discussing Vista and the fact that it requires a more powerful PC to run more slowly than XP bears out its lumbering code. Less than 10% of businesses have converted to Vista and its sales success is down to new PC sales to the home and SoHo market. Rumor has it that one key objective for the Windows 7 development team is to slim down the kernel to make it a leaner, faster operating system. Whether this will be achieved remains to be seen, but it would certaily be a welcomed accomplishment.