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== Development ==
== Development ==
The code name "Blackcomb" was originally assigned to Windows NT 6, an operating system that was planned to follow Windows XP (codenamed "Whistler;" both named after the Whistler-Blackcomb resort). Blackcomb would be the successor to both the desktop/workstation-oriented Windows XP (Windows NT 5.1) and the server-oriented Windows Server 2003 (Windows NT 5.2). In late 2001 the release of Blackcomb was being scheduled for 2005 and in August it was announced that a minor intermediate release, Vista (codenamed "Longhorn" after a bar in the Whistler Blackcomb Resort), would ship in 2002 to update the Windows NT 5.x line. Over the following years Longhorn morphed in fits, starts, and delays to incorporate many of the features promised for Blackcomb and was eventually designated as Windows NT 6. The status of the operating system dubbed "Blackcomb," however, was shrouded in confusion with some reports suggesting that plans for Blackcomb were scrapped while others claiming that it would be the moniker for a server-only Windows 6.x release. More likely, the codename "Blackcomb" was discarded as no longer being in the spirit of its original intent (i.e., to describe Windows NT 6). At the present, Windows Vista's successor (referred to here as Windows Seven) is being planned as both a client and server release with a current release date of late 2009 - early 2010.
The code name "Blackcomb" was originally assigned to Windows NT 6, an operating system that was planned to follow Windows XP (codenamed "Whistler;" both named after the Whistler-Blackcomb resort). Blackcomb would be the successor to both the desktop/workstation-oriented Windows XP (Windows NT 5.1) and the server-oriented Windows Server 2003 (Windows NT 5.2). In late 2001 the release of Blackcomb was being scheduled for 2005 and in August it was announced that a minor intermediate release, Vista (codenamed "Longhorn" after a bar in the Whistler Blackcomb Resort), would ship in 2002 to update the Windows NT 5.x line. Over the following years Longhorn morphed in fits, starts, and delays to incorporate many of the features promised for Blackcomb and was eventually designated as Windows NT 6. The status of the operating system dubbed "Blackcomb," however, was shrouded in confusion with some reports suggesting that plans for Blackcomb were scrapped while others claiming that it would be the moniker for a server-only Windows 6.x release. More likely, the codename "Blackcomb" was discarded as no longer being in the spirit of its original intent (i.e., to describe Windows NT 6). At the present, Windows Vista's successor (Windows Seven) is being planned as both a client and server release with a current release date of late 2009 - early 2010.
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[[category:information technology]]
[[category:information technology]]
== Shipment ==
Microsoft plans to deliver Windows Seven by the end of 2009, according to Ben Fathi, corporate vice president of development with Microsoft's Windows Core Operating System Division.
Microsoft originally planned for Vista to include a number of radical changes to Windows, including a new file system and a reinvented user interface, but after Microsoft's products were hit by widespread worm outbreaks in 2003, Microsoft moved its entire engineering plan to locking down Windows with the XP SP2 release.
"We put Longhorn on the back burner for awhile," Fathi said. "Then when we came back to it, we realized that there were incremental things that we wanted to do, and significant improvements that we wanted to make in Vista that we couldn't deliver in one release."
Vista shipped about two-and-a-half years after XP SP2, and Windows Seven is expected to take about the same amount of time, according to Fathi. "You can think roughly two, two-and-a-half years is a reasonable time frame that our partners can depend on and can work with, that's a good time frame for refresh." That would put Microsoft's next OS out by the end of 2009.
== Features ==
What will be the best new feature in Windows 7?
According to Fathi, that's still being worked out. "We're going to look at a fundamental piece of enabling technology. Maybe its hypervisors, I don't know what it is," he said. "Maybe it's a new user interface paradigm for consumers. It's too early for me to talk about it, but over the next few months I think you're going to start hearing more and more."