The speculation about Windows 7 continues. Some screenshots and a Windows 7 video (see below) are going around in the blogosphere. Basically, they just show Vista with some minor changes. Whoever published them in the first place might not have figured out yet what Milestone 1(M1) is all about. But, I guess, we would have heard more about it by now if something really exists that would just justify the name “Windows 7″. The truth is probably that Windows 7 is just in an early planning stage as this interview with a Microsoft official indicates.

Some days ago, I mentioned speculations that Windows 7 might be already available in 2009. It would make sense for Microsoft to come out earlier with a new Windows version to prevent users from getting too much used to their OS. However, the question is if Microsoft can afford to release again an operating system without any new revolutionary features. In my view, it is good that they focused mostly on security with Vista. Although it seems to me that most corporate customers think that Windows XP SP2 is secure enough. So the extra security that Vista has to offer is not sufficient for most enterprise to say good bye to XP.

This is not my opinion, though. But I do believe that next Windows better brings something “wow features”. The problem is that no one can predict when Microsoft’s engineers will have new revolutionary ideas. Just copying some of Apple’s or Google’s ideas probably won’t be enough either. On the other hand the new earnings reports indicate that Microsoft has more money than ever that could be invested in research.

What I am trying to say is that at the moment nobody really knows when Windows 7 will be available. It might be in 2009, but it also possible that we will not see a new Microsoft desktop OS before 2012. Therefore, I think that it doesn’t make much sense to just wait for Windows 7. I wouldn’t make the decision of deploying Vista dependent on Windows 7. If you need Vista or not depends mostly on your security needs, if the new OS deploymen features are useful to you, when you will deploy new hardware, if your software supports Vista and also if Windows Server 2008 has some new features you need.