Windows 7 is Windows Vista, Just Better: Ballmer

Giving somewhat damning praise, Steve Ballmer, speaking on Thursday at Gartner's Symposium/ITxpo conference in Orlando, Florida, said:

"Windows 7 will be Vista, but a lot better."

I'm trying to decide if that was good or bad for him to say. I mean, saying it's better is great, but linking Windows 7 to Windows Vista is probably just as bad as linking McCain to Bush, for the respective parties involved in the comparison.

Ballmer tried to give some upbeat news about Vista, but it fell on deaf ears:

"The adoption rate of Vista is faster than the adoption rate was of XP at two years in. We had a great success with security and starting to see a ramp with adoption."

Gartner fired back by noting that their own survey data showed that 61% are thinking about skipping Vista,

Ballmer then tried to make a case for upgrading to Vista now.

"If people want to wait they really can. But I’d definitely deploy Vista."

He also responded to criticism that Windows 7 is really not a major release, but rather, more like Vista 2 or Vista with some modifications.

"It's a real release, because it's a lot more work than a minor release. It turns out you can do more than just a minor release in what is essentially a two-and-a-half-year period of time. There's no reason to do just 'a minor release' in two and a half years."

It may be a real release, but it seems more like, unlike XP, Microsoft is rushing it out because of all the negativity surrounding Vista.

It sure seems like, though it's not what I would consider a minor release, it's certainly scaled back. And with all the schedule trauma of Windows Vista, this may be hard to believe, but it sure seems like they are on track for either their aggressive schedule of late 2009, or their other "don't tell us we're late" date of the end of January 2010.

More to come as PDC and WinHEC approach.