Today, Justin made these interesting comments ...
[color=blue]
> Hum...it took MS 5+ years to chisel out a new wheel. What's
> going to happen when they try to make a whole new wheel?[/color]

I've done software and I know the car biz pretty well. Both are
similar in this way: future "models" are ALWAYS under development
in a staggered schedule depending on the make and model being
updated or completely redone, meaning MS has many products, not
just Windows, and it must keep its own product offerings in synch
with anything that might partially or completely obsolete them. I
would expect that the business decisions can get pretty dicey. But,
back to the car biz, the trend is to stop completely redoing an
entire vehicle line with all-new everything including drrive-train
every 4-5 years because it is so expensive and quality suffers on
every all-new launch - that's true for ALL car makers, BTW. So,
most of the world's car makers are angling for what are being
called decade platforms, meaning the basic stuff that is so
expensive will be somewhat static and the cosmetics will change,
along with feature and drivetrain upgrades as needed. I would
speculate that MS is thinking along similar lines for its software.
But, eventually, anyone making anything soft, firm, or hard HAS to
start from a clean sheet of paper ...

[snip]
--
HP, aka Jerry