As long as Windows Vista is still far from being adopted by a large mass of users, and the long-awaited service pack passed by pretty quietly, I guess this huge effort from Microsoft will go down in history as a second Windows Millenium Edition, despite the fact Vista doesn't have all the problems Windows ME had. Anyway, it's good to see Microsoft looks ahead, and the most surprising fact is that Bill Gates just said the next Windows version may arrive as early as 2009!


So far, it was known that Microsoft said to expect the new Windows version, code-named Windows 7, to arrive approximately 3 years after Vista's release, which happened in January 2007. In the end, it seems Bill Gates was talking about a first public Alpha, or maybe even a Beta version, but I don't think we'll have Windows 7 ready to roll next year, but...who can tell?

The best part of the entire Windows Vista vs. Windows 7 vs. Windows XP story is that, in the end, Microsoft decided to keep Windows XP Home available untile either June 30, 2010, or one year after the release of Windows 7. There is only one reason for this - the expanding market of ultra-low-cost PCs (ULCPC), and not customer satisfaction, but let's simply hope Windows 7 will be a better OS than Vista!

Apart from Opera 9.5 and IE 8, and maybe even more important than them, a long-awaited software release scheduled for 2008 is the 3rd major version of Firefox. Currently, Firefox 3 is still in Beta stage, but I am sure the future will bring something really interesting, especially since Mozilla crafted 2 custom Firefox editions, one for eBay bidders, and the other, to help students have "a well-rounded college life."


As I write this, the official Firefox Beta page still shows the latest version to be 3 Beta 4, but we know for sure the 5th one is available... Unfortunately, its release missed the 10th Mozilla anniversary, celebrated on the 31st of March, but that's life - you can't have everything when you want, but better later than never!

Well, here you have the download link, but unfortunately now additional details can be found at this time. If you're into trying Beta versions, I am sure you know what to do... just be sure not to install this version over Firefox 2!

One of the most interesting facts in the IT industry is that it happens too often to see companies or various technologies winning a war against everyone, but losing in front of their own problems. It happened with 3dfx, it may happen with the Blu-Ray format, but now I want to tell you a few things about Microsoft's last battle. It's not about Yahoo, because that one is still undecided; it's about OOXML and what may follow after Microsoft's victory in that battle...


A few years ago, Microsoft was feeling the need to change the file format used by the applications in the Office suite, and now, after a year-long journey, Office Open XML, or shortly OOXML, has become an ISO-recognized international standard. As far as we know at this time, this should help OpenOffice 3 to integrate perfectly with Microsoft Office in a work environment, and even the current OpenOffice version seems to handle the OOXML format pretty well, but...

...claims of foul play in the voting process may came back, haunting Microsoft. The problem is that the European Comission sent out a confidential request for information to the ISO in Europe, saying "In your opinion, have there been any irregularities or attempts to influence the debate or vote on the ECMA 376 proposal as regards your organization? If so please provide details and any relevant facts," so now Microsoft should wait an see what national ISO bodies have to say about the whole deal.

For example, Norway voted against granting OOXML the ISO-standard status, but changed its decision later. Unfortunately, the standard is not yet fully implemented in competing platforms, and the worst part of it all is that, according to Thomas Vinje, legal counsel for the European Committee for Interoperable Systems, the ISO-certified OOXML format "is not what Microsoft implements in the Office suite," so...where is this going?

...yet another document format war, another chain of lawsuits against Microsoft, and a bunch of new problems for end users!