Vista to be last of its kind?

Gartner has released a list of predictions for 2007 that include the claim that Vista is likely to be the last major release of a Windows operating system.

Future operating systems, the analyst company predicts, will be more 'modular' and will be automatically updated incrementally.

Simply put, this means that the basic components of the operating system would be downloaded from the internet on a basis that was dictated by individual users and put an end to the mass deployments of new operating systems that we currently see. Users would then download updates and add-ons as and when they needed to.

This is not necessarily bad news for Microsoft, though. Gartner said that the software giant would "be a visible player in this movement, and the result will be more flexible updates... and a new focus on quality overall."

Other predictions made by Gartner include seeing a peak in the number of bloggers. There are already some 200 million people who have started blogs and given up on them, the company said, and given the average lifespan of a blogger the overall number of blogs will begin to decline by the end of next year.

The company also expects to see a 50 per cent reduction in the total cost of ownership (TCO) of a PC by 2010. This is due to an ever-growing variety of vendors that will be able to cater more specifically for the needs of individual users. The increase in competition will drive down the prices of security tools and other necessary software, meaning that the end user won't have to spend too much.

http://www.gartner.com/

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