Will home users pay that price? I'm betting they won't. True, some Microsoft diehards will line up on October 22 to grab the first copies of Win 7, but most consumers will spot the price tag and walk away.

During this year's WWDC, Apple took the time to talk up Snow Leopard, the successor to Mac OS X, but also made sure to talk about Windows. Apple's Bertrand Serlet made a point to say that the company loves and is proud of Leopard, so to show that the next version built upon the previous one, the company called the operating system Snow Leopard. Serlet called Windows 7 "just another version" of Windows Vista, noting that the user still has to deal with DLLs, the registry, disk defragmenter, and so on. He emphasized that Microsoft has dug quite a big hole with Vista and is trying to get out of it with Windows 7, at which point the screen showed the rather harsh quote: "Vista has failed to catch on with mainstream computer users, while businesses have shunned it outright." On top of that, he said that Windows 7 has "even more complexity" since it is "the same old tech as Vista" and is "just another version of Vista."

Windows 7 starts out on the wrong foot

Although it's too early to fully measure the impact Windows 7 will have on the third-party market, it's already off to a bad start with its heavy-handed dismissal of third-party video codecs. Third-party codecs cooperate with video compression standards that Microsoft's own video applications, such as Media Player, were heretofore loathe to support.

But Windows 7 adds some new codecs to Microsoft's quiver, and where these collide with third-party products, you won't be surprised who comes out on top.

Windows 7 preempts third-party codecs in Microsoft's own applications, such as Media Player, by using its own embedded codecs whenever possible. This is a major change from XP and Vista operation, where users could override Microsoft codecs globally. Although users can circumvent Windows 7 codec usurpation with some effort, the process is not intuitive and decidedly less convenient than the old behavior.

Likewise, power users soon learn that their ability to hack Windows 7 to make it work the way they want is often limited by the closed, black-box nature of its proprietary code base. These users see how easy it is to custom-tailor Linux and even Mac OS X, and they feel that twinge of jealously. They want what these other platforms provide, and soon they find themselves coveting their neighbor's OS.

The latest round of comments could further indicate that following the troubles of Windows Vista, competitors may be sensing blood in the water with Redmond's latest efforts. The remarks from IBM and Salesforce.com come after Apple suggested that it would be gaining users following the release of Windows 7.

A few points that came to mind:-

* I don’t recall such a review of OSX Snow Leopard when it came out, BBC biased towards Microsoft? * Will there be a similar review of other OS releases this month/year such as Ubuntu and others? * Why focus so much on the touch elements if most computers don’t have a touch screen and it’s a ‘gimmick’. Perhaps it just makes good telly, even if it’s somewhat misguided * No mention of the pain users will have upgrading * No mention of the cost * No mention of the fact that OSX is cheaper, instead focussing on the cost of Apple hardware. Isn’t this an OS review, not a hardware review. I’d bet that Sony touch screen Rory used isn’t exactly cheap * ‘little community’ building Free Software you say Rory? Dismissive and unnecessarily Patronising * ‘don’t want to bother with that sort of stuff’. I find many users don’t want to ‘bother’ with viruses, malware and broken software, but they do, on Windows * Ubuntu isn’t ‘out next week’. The latest version is. Ubuntu has been around for 5 years (this week). What we’re doing is no different to Microsoft shipping a new release of Windows, and Apple shipping a new OSX. It just so happens ours is free

Rory, please feel free to come along to the Ubuntu Release Party next Thursday 29th in London, and you can meet some of the great people who help put Ubuntu together.

Microsoft is set to launch an advertising campaign promoting the security€ of Windows 7 that even its own executives admitted was less than sincere.

During the Windows 7 launch event in Sydney this morning (see photo€ gallery top right), journalists were shown a number of advertisements€ that will feature in an upcoming television campaign - including one€ touting the operating system's security capabilities.

The advertisement in question features an elderly gentlemen with what€ looks to be his grandson. They are playing with a very grand toy castle€ and talking about IT security.

"A while back something just popped into my head: 'My PC should have more€ security'," said the grandfather. "Like 50-foot castle wall-type€ security. Next thing I know, whammo! There's Windows 7. Now it keeps all€ my personal info safer and I don't have to worry about bad stuff getting€ through. Victory is mine. How's that for secure?"

[...]

"Don't you worry that [the advert] might just be misleading a few people€ into not buying antivirus software?" Ross asked. "Because you're still€ going to have to, aren't you?"

Putt responded by saying consumers should get "more sincere guidance"€ from a third party.

When asked if whitelisting legitimate security products - so rogue security applications would be automatically blocked - was a possibility, Strathdee explained that this would be "an enormous amount of work" and is made more difficult in countries that have a large number of relatively unknown security vendors.