Forrester: Windows 7 neat, not revolutionary

Waiting for Windows 7 to swoop in and save your business from poor Windows Vista sales? Don’t hold your breath, according to Forrester Research.

In a blog post yesterday, analyst Benjamin Gray wrote that Windows 7, Microsoft’s next-generation operating system, is “clearly going to be an evolutionary update, not the revolutionary update that many are hoping for. So the challenges that organizations are experiencing with Windows Vista today will also occur with what’s coming next.”

The title of the blog post was “What’s New With Windows 7? Not That Much Apparently.” Ouch.

Forrester has already recommended that users bite the bullet and migrate to Vista sooner rather than later. The news trickling out about Windows 7 — mainly, that it will use a refined Vista kernel — only emphasizes that point more, Gray wrote.

Oh, and what about the Windows 7 touch-screen feature?

“While the touch capabilities that Ballmer and Gates demonstrated … last week were neat, they aren’t going to help you with this [Vista migration] decision-making process,” Gray wrote. Double ouch.

Depending on what you read, Windows 7 will hit the market in either late 2009 or sometime in 2010. Microsoft has been keeping most Windows 7 details under wraps.