Office 2007 Enterprise Counting to (Windows) 7

I;ve gotten a lot of questions from Windows customers this week about TG Every day;s story that Microsoft is running early with Windows 7 and has delivered an early develop to unnamed events outside of the enterprise.Right here;s what I do know and don;t.First off, Microsoft officially is refusing to say anything whatsoever about Windows 7. They aren;t confirming, aren;t denying. They just aren;t talking about this. Period. They wish to speak about Windows Vista and — to a much lesser extent — Vista Service Pack (SP) 1. (And they definitely don;t want to speak about “Shipping 7,” the blog from someone allegedly working on the Windows 7 team.)On Channel 9, I saw one Microsoft employee insist that Windows seven is still in the planning phase — implying that it;s only slideware at this point. But being in planning doesn;t mean that early builds do not exist. In fact, I have heard a number of Microsoft folks have Windows 7 running on their systems. Is this the alleged M1 (Milestone 1) develop mentioned in TG Daily;s tale? I don;t know.I have not (yet) found folks exterior of Microsoft who claim to have a develop of Windows 7. Does this mean such a build doesn;t exist? No. Top OEMs tend to see pretty early builds of new versions of Windows, so if a Windows seven create is available,Office 2007 Enterprise, I bet some PC makers have seen it.Could Windows seven ship before Microsoft;s publicly stated date of 2010? Definitely. In fact, I will almost be surprised if it doesn;t, with all the new Windows motto of under-promise and over-deliver.When we very first heard Microsoft was telling its salesforce that Windows 7 was going to be a 2010 deliverable, I figured the new Windows engineering regime had built some padding into that timeline so as not to face another Vista slip-date scenario. Plus, what better way to convince clients on the fence about upgrading to Vista or waiting for the next Windows create that they should make the move? (”Do you really desire to wait at least three more years?”)(And remember, before we heard the 2010 date, the Windows team had said publicly that it was on an just about every two-year release schedule. Microsoft shipped Vista in 2007. TG Daily says the new target is second half of 2009. If Microsoft is targeting holiday 2009, it would have to release to manufacturing Windows seven in the late summer/early fall, in order for PC makers to get it preloaded on new PCs in time.)Windows 7 is unlikely to include major architectural changes, Microsoft officials have said, making it even more likely to ship sooner rather than later.What;s your bet? Will Windows 7 hit in 2009? And if it does, will that impact your Vista upgrade plans (either positively or negatively)?