By Ina Fried, 6 November 2008 08:50
NEWS
Choice was the watchword in the Windows 7 discussion Wednesday, as Microsoft aimed to highlight what it sees as its chief advantage over rival Apple.
Senior vice president, Steven Sinofsky, said in a speech at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC): "A key part of Windows 7 is to enable a full spectrum of choices."
While the new Windows will enable high-end machines with multitouch, it will also work on low-end machines. While Vista has largely been absent in the fast-growing netbook category, Windows 7 is aimed to work well on such low-end devices - a number of which are on display at WinHEC.
Among the machines Microsoft showed was an Eee PC with a 1GB hard drive and a 16GB solid-state drive, which the software maker said could run Windows 7 with "room to spare".
For hardware makers, Microsoft has a feature called "device stage" that lets them offer up things like manuals, links to services, and access to content stored on the device in one place.
On stage, Microsoft showed a Nokia phone hooked up to Windows 7, automatically making available all the content on the device.
The company also said it will support a number of additional audio and video formats out of the box, including DivX, H.264 and unprotected AAC.
Windows 7 also has integrated support for sensors, such as light sensors, accelerometers or GPS, or even more exotic kinds of input. For example, Microsoft showed a ThinkPad with a spectrophotometer to help handle colour calibration.
Sinofsky also noted that even though Microsoft has put a lot of focus on touch, it is not abandoning its Tablet PC work. Ray Ozzie last week told TechFlash that touch can be mainstream, while Tablet PC was "truly niche", a description that apparently irked the Tablet PC enthusiast crowd.
As for when Windows 7 will actually be available, Microsoft didn't offer new details beyond saying a feature-complete beta will be available in early 2009.
Sinofsky did mention a "release candidate to RTM phase", suggesting that Microsoft is only planning a single beta.
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