Windows 7 - the OS for the future ?
Must confess i am not the one to look too closely at operating systems,
my domain is more solutions than the technology itself
but operating systems are core to how we use computers
so i eagerly awaited the new windows 7.

I saw it first at the MVP Open day in Goa in November
( yup long time no write blog :-) )
First impressions were coloured by the limited presentation itself
things were still secret
so what we saw was a lot of UI tweaks but little substance.
where was the future in this ?

then towards the end the presenter said something that made it all fall in place
he stated that windows 7 was not just an enhancement on the XP / Vista platform
that it had been designed by Ray Ozzie from scratch.
Halleujah - that one statement made windows 7 a whole new animal
i stopped worrying.

If Ray has done this from scratch i don't need to know
if x problem is fixed
or y feature has been included
a see whole new way of doing things, yet familiar
i know the goodies will reveal themselves slowly
as programmers themselves try to grapple with a new pardigm.

I always believed that in Groove Virtual Office Ray was the kernel of a new operating system
one that implicitly knew that i create documents in order to share them
that i no longer live in a world where computers were office equipment
today my personal and professional worlds and even multiple personnas,
are integrated into one very fluid whole
the the computer is now where i live some part of each day.

Ray's perception has been that all work and indeed living
requires collaboration in some way between people
who are not necessarily going to be in one place at the same time.
That i need my information to go where i go
and be accessible even if i do not have internet connectivity at that moment.
Much of the philosophy of Groove Virtual Office deserves to be embedded in the OS itself
so machines begin to really work the way people instinctively do.

In keeping with that philosophy i expect windows 7 do do more
and expect less from the user,
than windows software traditionally has.