With the frustrations caused by Windows Vista, many are looking ahead at what Windows 7 will bring. And according to Bill Gates, it may just be what the doctor ordered.

With Vista, emphasis was on security. And, yes, compared to Windows XP, Vista is indeed a more secure operating system. But, that left us with a LOT of bloat. Vista is slower than Windows XP and is a beast in system memory. If you downgrade any PC from Vista to XP, you almost feel like you’re using a brand new computer again. I know. I’ve done it.

In a press release issued by Gates in Tokyo, Japan, Gates makes some comments on Windows 7.

We’re hard at work, I would say, on the next version, which we call Windows 7. I’m very excited about the work being done there. The ability to be lower power, take less memory, be more efficient, and have lots more connections up to the mobile phone, so those scenarios connect up well to make it a great platform for the best gaming that can be done, to connect up to the thing being done out on the Internet, so that, for example, if you have two personal computers, that your files automatically are synchronized between them, and so you don’t have a lot of work to move that data back and forth.

Obviously we’d all love it if people had more PCs per average, and so making that simple is important. Also the effort to upgrade, I think that’s an area we got a lot of feedback in Vista, that we need to invest in that, and we’re going to make that very, very simple for people. So Vista is doing well, and we’re hard at work putting even more investment now in the version that comes after that.

So, he is speaking right to my heart. This also comes after Gates all but admitted Vista sucked at the last CES show in Las Vegas.

I’m hoping Windows 7 is better, for the sake of the brand. I’m a Mac guy now (and Vista played a large role in my conversion). However, Windows is still king and will be for the foreseeable future. I really do want it to do well.

Damn. Whoah. And at the same time, yeah.

This is how I reacted when I saw a story which cites a pair of Gartner analysts saying that Windows is “collapsing”. They go on to say that the situation is “untenable” and that Microsoft must make radical changes to the OS or risk becoming old news.

According to the story on ComputerWorld:

In a presentation at a Gartner-sponsored conference in Las Vegas, analysts Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald said Microsoft has not responded to the market, is overburdened by nearly two decades of legacy code and decisions, and faces serious competition on a whole host of fronts that will make Windows moot unless the software developer acts.

Speaking for myself, I have been THOROUGHLY disabused by the Windows Vista fiasco, so much so that I abandoned Windows altogether and am now using all OS X on 3 different Macs. Sure, I still use Windows in a virtual session, but it is XP. What Vista showed me is that Microsoft just doesn’t get it. Vista is a bloated piece of crap, and the Gartner guys correctly point out that it is weighed down by nearly two decades of legacy code.

Microsoft - STOP the legacy support! It will be the death of Windows. Seriously, are they going to release Windows 7 in 2010 and still attempt to support hardware that is 10+ years old?

Microsoft is obviously trying to make Windows all things to everybody, and in the process they are making it too little for almost everybody.

Andy Beal, from Marketing Pilgrim, makes a great point: Is Microsoft Rushing to Acquire Yahoo Before Windows Shatters? Even Arrington over at Techcrunch is echoing this point, saying THIS is why the MicroHoo deal needs to happen. The question is this: If Microsoft loses it’s grip over the desktop environment, do they then need to position themselves quickly to be a leader in the online environment?

And Microsoft hasn’t exactly been a leader online. They are a reactionary company. They see somebody else doing well in a market and they devise a way to take over. Perhaps the Yahoo deal is just Microsoft being Microsoft. Can’t beat ‘em - BUY THEM!

My only hope here is that the Microsoft culture does not kill off what we like about Yahoo. The two companies have very different cultures, and I’m really failing to see exactly how Microsoft fits into the equation - except for the fact that they are just rushing to stay relevant in a computing world shifting increasingly to the Internet.

It looks as if Microsoft is now contradicting comments from their chairman Bill Gates. Gates originally had said that Windows 7 may be shipping as early as 2009. A Microsoft spokesman, though, as come out and said:

“We are currently in the planning stages for Windows 7 and development is scoped to three years from Windows Vista consumer.”

Since Vista came out in 2007, that would put Windows 7 into 2010. This was revealed in an email sent to Information Week.

Windows 7 is currently in the very initial phases of development under the codename Blackcomb. The fact that so many are already looking forward to Windows 7 is testament to the relative failure of Vista to impress, well, anybody.

Personally, I’m not waiting for Windows 7 for anything more than curiosity. For me, the big question will be:

Did Microsoft learn anything from the Vista debacle?

We shall see.