Valley view: Microsoft gets its numbers game right

Something weird and rather wonderful is happening to operating systems, and it is not just the new psychedelic wallpaper designs for Windows 7.

Talking about the merits of a computer operating system is a speedy way to lose friends and alienate people and my impression that Microsoft’s latest OS is a mind-altering experience could make me a candidate for the funny farm as well. Yet there is something strange going on here.

The emblematic wallpaper sets the tone. The scenes commissioned from artists around the globe are of other-worldly creatures and environments, some reminiscent of The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine movie and Japanese anime.

I take the allegorical meaning to be that the old model for the OS is being torn apart and new virtual worlds are being created by entities foreign to Microsoft’s ways.

Everything about Windows 7 suggests the old order in software is being disrupted and Microsoft’s world is wobbling on its axis.

Among the examples of how the great Redmond machine is turning its thinking on its head and messing with my own mind, the name of the new Windows figures as Exhibit A.

Why go all retro on us with 7? There has not been a number for Windows since Windows 3.0 in 1990. And whatever happened to 4, 5 and 6?

Then, the fact that Microsoft is giving the operating system away. Has Steve Ballmer gone completely bonkers?

From May 5, anyone could download the release candidate for Windows 7 – as close to a finished product as Microsoft gets and perhaps the most stable Windows pre-release ever – and use it free until June 1 2010.

Next, instead of the usual increase in bloatware, Microsoft appears to have taken things out of Windows – the e-mail, movie maker and photo gallery applications are gone. And where is the backwards compatibility to Windows XP?

However, there has to be rational explanations for all these strange phenomena, even though Microsoft has been forced radically to adjust its business model to the changing times.

First, the name. Microsoft could have followed Windows Vista with Windows Panorama or some such equivalent.

But Vista has been such a disappointment that the company appears to want to sever all ties with such a naming convention and get back to basics.

There is nothing more basic than the underlying numbers for the different operating systems, which became buried in the code from Windows 95 onwards. Microsoft now says that Windows 95 was 4, 2000 was 5, Vista was 6 and therefore the new version is 7.

However, this doesn’t make a lot of sense. Windows 98 somehow shipped as 4.0.1998 and Windows XP, a major release, was a mere 5.1. Windows 7 may appear to put things back on a more straightforward naming path, but look at the code inside and you will see it labelled as 6.1.

Second, giving Windows 7 away initially may be a smart marketing move. Those consumers converting from ponderous Vista to the faster, leaner 7 will not want to go back and are likely to pay for the upgrade when their year’s free trial expires.

Microsoft will make most of its money from businesses and by selling pre-installed copies of 7 in new computers when the operating system is officially introduced in the next few months, perhaps by October.

Third, the missing applications can now be found online as part of Microsoft’s Windows Live offering. The company is showing it can compete with Google in web-based services, where the browser is challenging as an alternative operating system.

Lastly, Microsoft is using virtualisation to create a Windows XP experience within 7. This means XP can run in its own curtained-off virtual PC environment and 7 can be the first Windows operating system to be freed from the baggage and drag on performance of having to be tuned to handle legacy systems.

Virtual XP could also be the clincher in persuading enterprises, who snubbed Vista and have been clinging on to XP, to upgrade to 7.

This is also an example of Microsoft turning a concept that has been used against it to its own advantage.

Netbooks and laptops have been appearing equipped with Linux-based operating systems inside virtual machines that load in just a few seconds and offer simple browsing and e-mail as an alternative to the slow-booting Vista.

Personally, I would love to see Microsoft create virtual machines within Windows 7 for every operating system going back to MS-DOS, just so I can take a trip down memory lane and be able to read files from 20 years ago in their native programs.

There would have to be compromise on what numbers to give them, but I’m sure we could work something out.