No replies to this topic

[Nvyseal]

Microsoft Corp. may begin shipping its Windows 7 operating system as early as the third quarter, months before the software maker’s official prediction, a computer-industry executive said.

“According to current planning, it should be late September or early October,” said Ray Chen, president of Taipei-based Compal Electronics Inc.，the maker of laptop personal computers for Hewlett-Packard Co. and Acer Inc.

Windows 7, Microsoft’s first operating system since the general release of Vista in January 2007, may help spur sales of PCs amid the global recession, Chen said. Worldwide notebook shipments this year will be little changed from 2008 at 120 million to 125 million units, he told an investors’ conference at the company’s headquarters today.

“Windows 7 has much better performance than Windows Vista,” said Daniel Chang, a computer-industry analyst at Macquarie Securities Ltd. in Taipei. “The reviews have been excellent and there’s been real improvement in the user interface.”

Some Microsoft executives have suggested the debut may come earlier. In October, Bill Veghte, a senior vice president in the Windows group, said the product would be released in a year, closer to the timeline cited by Compal. In April 2008, co- founder Bill Gates said the next version would be out “in the next year or so.”