After a five-year hiatus between the debut of Windows XP and that of Windows Vista, Microsoft intends to move to a faster release schedule for its flagship operating system. The folks at InfoWorld have learned from Ben Fathi, the Corporate VP of Development for Microsoft's Windows Core Operating System Division, that Microsoft plans to have a successor to Windows Vista ready by the end of 2009.
The shorter time frame will be possible because Vista was "exceptional," Fathi says. He blames the OS's delay largely on the infamous 2003 Blaster worm outbreak, which he says forced Microsoft to put Vista on the back burner while it worked to beef up Windows XP's security. However, Vista's development also hit some serious snags, and in 2004, Microsoft essentially started over from scratch. Now that Vista is out the door, Fathi says a 2-2.5 year wait between Windows releases is a "good timeframe for refresh" and "a reasonable time frame that our partners can depend on and can work with."
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