Microsoft is putting the finishing touches on Windows 7 and can't wait for people to forget about Windows Vista. But Monday at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference, an Apple executive couldn't resist kicking some more sand in Microsoft's face over the Vista debacle.
End users shouldn't have to fiddle around with confusing, non-intuitive Vista tools like User Account Control and disk defragmentation, but Microsoft's upcoming release of Windows 7 is essentially "just another version of Vista" that includes the same confounding complexities, said Bertrand Serlet, senior vice president of software engineering at Apple, at WWDC.
"Vista has failed to catch on with mainstream consumers and businesses. Microsoft has dug quite a hole for themselves with Vista, and now they're trying to get out of it with Windows 7," Serlet said at WWDC.
Apple will release OS X 10.6 'Snow Leopard' in September, and with that comes support for Microsoft Exchange and numerous under-the-hood performance tweaks. These include Grand Central, a set of technologies that adds support for multicore processors and parallel computing, and OpenCL, which lets applications tap into unused GPU computing power.
"We come from such a different place [than Microsoft]," Serlet told WWDC attendees.
Microsoft will launch Windows 7 at retail and through OEMs on Oct. 22. Reviews thus far have been strongly positive, but Microsoft faces the challenge of trying to get companies to ignore the gnashing teeth of the current economy to upgrade their OS infrastructure.
Microsoft has yet to reveal what it'll charge for Windows 7, probably to put off the inevitable howls of protest as long as possible. Apple, on the other hand, will offer Snow Leopard as an upgrade to existing customers for just $29, and Serlet suggested this was intended to make the decision an easy one for users.
Whatever Microsoft decides to charge for Windows 7 upgrades, it'll probably be more than $29, although Microsoft will reportedly launch a program on June 26 that gives new Vista PC buyers free upgrades to Windows 7.
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