The preceding image is a touchscreen PC, with all cables cleverly hidden below that festoons a slide labeled “Focus: Hardware Capabilities” and mentions multiple contact points, improved (touch) sampling rates, automatic ambient light controls over display brightness, and voice control among numerous other topics.

Now that Windows 7 is off to a resounding start, Microsoft is apparently beginning to plan the next version of Windows in earnest, where lots of interesting topics still figure into their design and development plans. These include an ongoing focus on faster boot-up and startup, a keen appreciation for what Apple has been able to accomplish with a strong interest in replicating their systems and software success, more attention on the post-purchase installation and user experience, and even built-in facial recognition for systems that include Web cams (which nearly all notebooks do nowadays, along with an ever-increasing number of desktops).

To me, it’s not just an interesting indicator of what might (or might not) lie ahead for Windows, these slides also tell us a lot about what Microsoft thinks is important, where and how it perceives its competitors and problems, and what kinds of buzzwords and “keen technologies” are currently grabbing mindshare in Redmond and elsewhere. If you’re interested in Windows, and want to get some sense of what lies ahead for upcoming versions, take a look at these slides — you won’t get a lot of details or substance, but you will be tantalized and teased with what’s possible and promised, though neither scheduled nor actually on the table for implementation just yet.

A number of publications have picked up on the fact that Microsoft displayed more than one slide at last week’s Professional Developers Conference (PDC) that showed a 2012 date for the next version of Windows Server. This suggests that the next Windows client, Windows 8, will also ship at that time. I can now verify this and even expand on it, after speaking with several sources inside the software giant. The plan is this: New versions of Windows and Windows Server will ship in lockstep every three years going forward. There won’t be major and minor versions as before, just new versions. This plan—in case it’s not obvious—is based on the success Microsoft had in delivering Windows 7 in three years, but it goes deeper than that. Most groups within Microsoft are now emulating the way the company delivered Windows 7 as well, with no promises that can’t be met and few public disclosures about features until everything is clearly established. Is this a good thing? It worked for Windows 7, of course, but then Windows 7 came on the heels of the most overhyped and over-promised Windows version ever. My guess is that in five years or so, Microsoft will also abandon this plan as it figures out that just because something worked for one product—or even one product version—doesn’t mean it’s a universal solution. But for now, this is the new plan.

Wow! Shades of the old days of central planning in the Soviet states, where everything worked around a 5-year schedule. But if we look at the timing of Windows releases since NT 4, here’s what you see

• Windows NT: 1996 (client and server)
• Windows 2000: 2000 (client and server)
• Windows XP: 2001
• Windows Server 2003: 2003
• Windows Vista: 2006
• Windows Server 2008: 2008
• Windows Server 2008 R2: 2009
• Windows 7: 2009

We sit a bit of up-and-down, or back-and-forth in release timings. I think it’s probably smart to understand this three year calendar as explaining how Microsoft wants things to be, but also to recognize that unforeseen events and issues can get in the way, and might occasionally speed things up but more probably slow them down from such a fixed interval approach.

But hey, at least we know more about what Microsoft wants to do and when to start planning for their next desktop and server OSes. If this is a newer, kinder, and more transparent Microsoft, I think I like it.