Microsoft releases pre-beta version of Windows 7

LOS ANGELES, USA: If you are one of the 'wait and watch' creed pondering over whether you need to go for Vista or not, you need to ponder further as Microsoft, on Day 2 of Professional Developers Conference (PDC) 2008, announced its next version of Windows, the pre-beta release christened as Windows 7.

While riding on the innovative GUI features in Vista, Windows 7 promises to offer richer user experience, convergence, synchronization and security features. The company also said that it would bring overall memory consumption footprint in Windows 7.

Ray Ozzie, chief software architect of the company while announcing the pre-beta release said, "We are bringing the best of the web to Windows. From PC to the web to the phone and from the server to the cloud, we are focused on enabling the creation of the next generation of user experiences that change the way we live, work and play."

One of the innovative features of Windows 7 is its amazing touch screen functionality. Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president of Windows and Windows Live, demonstrated various features of Windows 7 and its flexibility.

What it means is user can play around with numerous features. Some features are small but have great impact on users. Take for instance the use of USB thumb drives. And when the drive gets lost, the users lose the confidential data in the drive.

To address this issue Microsoft has added an encryption feature in Windows 7. What the users can do is before taking out the thumb drive from the system they can encrypt and de-crypt it when they use it again.

Since it’s just a pre-release beta, Windows 7 is not fully evolved yet.

Microsoft also did not indicate a specific time line when it will hit the market. Nevertheless, going by the initial response Microsoft is determined to take both the consumer and enterprise computing to a whole new dimension. It’s embedding so many smart features that make Windows 7 the OS to look out.

For the consumer, what Windows 7 will do is that it will help them manage the tasks easier with user-friendly interface.

With functions like multi-touch gestures and a concept called Device Stage, users can connect to multiple hardware devices without any hassles.

On the commercial side of things, Windows 7 will enable developers to come out with more user-rich applications leveraging amazing graphical capabilities of Windows 7. Capabilities like IE 8, native web services API and federated search enable developers to integrate the best of Windows and Web Services.