Gartner predicts Vista to be last major Windows | Tech&Sci | Technology | Reuters.com — Oh no! What are we going to do?

Research firm Gartner Inc. turned soothsayer on Wednesday by predicting that Windows Vista will be the last big release of Microsoft Corp.’s Windows operating system.

The era of monolithic deployments of software releases is nearing an end and Microsoft will participate in the trend toward more flexible updates, Gartner forecast in a list of forecasts about 2007.

Gartner also expects that the blogging trend will peak in the first half of 2007. Given the average life span of a blogger and the growth rate of blogs, the research firm predicted the peak number of bloggers will be around 100 million at some point in the first half of 2007.



  1. sdf says:

    Tiny Tim approves.

  2. Jonathan Fox says:

    Im guessing the OS landscape will be very different next time round and I dare say Google will have something to say about it.

    To make a play on words of the saying, “A death by a thousand cuts” Google’s approach is “An OS by a thousand Apps”.

  3. James Hill says:

    If anything, this makes the “Windows 2000 is the best Microsoft OS.” crowd visionaries, because that becomes the only OS from M$ that doesn’t need a ton of crap piled on it to work.

    My problem with Gardner’s read on the topic is that they’re thinking along Apple’s line, but leaving out the part where Apple started from scratch with OS X.

    Vista has always striked me as XP with a bunch more crap, not a fresh start.

  4. OhForTheLoveOf says:

    From the blogged article:
    Gartner said it believes that by 2010, 60 percent of worldwide mobile phone users will be “trackable” via an emerging “follow-me Internet” technology as growing demands for national safety and civil protection relax some privacy limitations.

    So am I getting this right. Net enabled cell products (nothing new) will replace the desktop? Whatever you say Queequeg.

    I don’t think they are wrong that the OC landscape will change or that blogging will peak… but cell phones are just that… phones… with a bunch of semi-useful gadgets shoved into them.

    And who are all these mysterious people demanded less liberty and more “security”? I surely don’t know any of them.

  5. OhForTheLoveOf says:

    Not just the OC landscape… but the OS landscape as well 🙂

  6. Sundog says:

    4. OFTLO- “Gartner said it believes that by 2010, 60 percent of worldwide mobile phone users will be “trackable” via an emerging “follow-me Internet” technology as growing demands for national safety and civil protection relax some privacy limitations.”

    I got a tinfoil hat for sale, want one?

  7. RTaylor says:

    Apple didn’t start from scratch with OSX. It’s UNIX which is 3 decades old.

  8. Angel H. Wong says:

    Who gives a damn about MacOS?

    For all I care, the sole reason there’s very little viruses is simply because of 2 reasons: a) Not enough users to make enough damage and b) It’s way too easy to make mac users squeal like a pig.

  9. Eideard says:

    Closer to 4 decades. UNIX officially rolled out at Bell Labs in 1969.

  10. Gregory says:

    I think MS are going to have to finally suck it up and base their OS from UNIX next time around.

    At least if they want to have any public relations success. It would make a lot of sense and be less work than they have to do now.

    They could still keep their own additions proprietary, but contribute fixes in the fundamental code back to the base platform, and they would win a LOT of support that way.

    It worked really well for Apple, and Linux is fast making inroads into the desktop (mostly Ubuntu). It would mean they would be able to compete on a level that most OS.. er OS’s can’t do.

  11. Floyd says:

    #3: Actually, WinXP is a perfectly functional OS. I really don’t need the the prettiness of Aero in Vista to get my work done. I use the Win2K GUI rather than the XP GUI on this computer, because it’s functional. If there are security or other good reasons to install Vista (or it comes with a new PC), I’ll probably configure the GUI to be like Win2K if I can.

  12. Mark Derail says:

    With enough web apps, we won’t need much in our PC’s.

    Just a bootstrap, kernel, graphical windowing desktop with high-end 3D graphic capability.

    Everything will stream into your computer as needed.

    Being a Unix Guru of over 15yrs, Ubuntu is surprisingly nice. I didn’t need to use any of my skills to make a bootable machine with Firefox and Open Office.

    When it comes to games, that’s another story, but it’s getting better.

    One of our local radio stations is seriously spamming MAC non-stop. Not just commercials, the DJ’s. Every second sentence.

    Is MAC taking over the radios in other cities too? What’s in English Montreal usually stems from Toronto, but what about elsewhere?

  13. Tom 2 says:

    Why couldn’t XP be the last major windows? Second blogging has not peaked? Usually something else has to take another things place for it to just go away. The average lifespan of a blogger???? Like we are going to die right when it peaks, who is this guy kidding?

  14. Daniel S says:

    I find this post interesting in light of one several up – about a “Psychic” exposed on Montel.

    Gartner is around making these predictions year after year – and IT executives pay them big bucks for it. I’d be really curious to see a study judging how accurate their predictions are..

    Granted they are basing them on study and SOME sorft of “scientific” method – instead of the “spirit world” – but I’ve seen a lot of really bone-headed moves by executives who treat these Gartner (and their competitors) predictions like the “True Believers” of the psychic.

    Personally – I think they are wrong. I believe Vista will be very successful (over time) and be the primary operating system on client PC’s – and thereWILL be a new OS’s from Microsoft in the future…

  15. James Hill says:

    #7 – By ‘from scratch’ I was talking about the application compatibility layer, which is what matters in this conversation. Nice try at making a point, however.

    #8 – About 8% of the market in a few years, according to a recent study. The fact you don’t use it doesn’t mean shit (like all the rest of your posts).

    #12 – Meanwhile, you could just run W2K without the extra processes and save CPU cycles. You do understand that XP is just 2000 + ‘improvements’… right?

    #13 – I understand that the Dumb Terminal crowd holds their meetings in a phone booth down the block. You must fit in well there.

  16. Frank IBC says:

    #11 Gregory –

    Yes, MS will eventually adopt Unix, just as surely as they adopted HTML in 1995, and as AOL adopted HTML a decade later, abandoning Rainman and .art files.

  17. edwinrogers says:

    I have to agee with Gartner. The age of the profitable OS is over.

  18. tkane says:

    Interesting. People still take Gartner seriously? Huh…

    To be sure. there is a growing anti-Microsoft sentiment in the IT community, and it’s caused mostly by weariness of the upgrade treadmill. When someone comes up with a truly viable alternative to Windows, the trend away from MS will occur. Don’t expect it to happen in this decade, though; there is no alternative, really.


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