At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has focused on advocating the new Windows 7 operating system. Mr Ballmer has given the new operating system “best ever” status:

“…As expected, Ballmer announced that Microsoft is releasing a beta version of Windows 7, which will be available for download beginning Friday. The news suggests the world’s largest software maker may be giving up efforts to rehabilitate its often-maligned Vista operating system, which was released worldwide in January 2007.

“We are on track to deliver the best version of Windows ever,” Ballmer told an audience of several thousand tech professionals and journalists inside a cavernous ballroom at the Venetian hotel. “We’re working hard to get it right and get it ready.”"

link: Microsoft’s Ballmer touts ‘best version of Windows ever’

It is still possible to find some of the pre-release advertising for Vista. There is a striking similarity of confidence from Microsoft. It seems regrettable that the emphasis is always on the next “best” product. It would be nice to see some praise for work done in the past. One never hears that “XP was a landmark work; many people could continue with it for years to come”. That would give Microsoft’s marketing and finance divisions too much trauma.

Catherine Forsythe