Talking Windows with Microsoft’s Ben Green

After writing about the forthcoming Windows Seven a few blogs back, I thought I’d talk to someone at Microsoft NZ about Windows. Ben agreed to the interview below. If you have any further questions, stick them in the comments, and I’ll see what I can do about a follow up.

Consumer: Start off by introducing yourself and what your role is at Microsoft NZ?

Ben Green: I’m Ben Green, and I’ve been at Microsoft NZ for about five years. I’m the Windows Business Group Manager, which means I’m responsible for all the versions of Windows from XP to Seven, as well as Windows Mobile and the Windows Live set of programs, such as Hotmail and Messenger.

C: Can you sum up Microsoft’s position in the NZ market? How are Vista and XP doing these days?

BG: We’ve had Vista out for just over two years. When we released it, we had clear feedback that said “don’t wait so long between operating system releases”. It had been a long time since XP was released. Innovation moves at a more rapid pace than that!

We acknowledge there was criticism, but it was clear to us that one of our big focuses should be on making a secure OS. To do this with Vista, we had to change a lot of the underlying code, which meant a number of programs suddenly didn’t work.

Many people don’t realise this, but by and large it’s because many programs just assumed that they would have administration rights on the PC, as they did on XP. But this was where a lot of the vulnerabilities were coming from. So the developer ecosystem had to adapt to compatibility issues. It took a while before some of them got their apps over the line – and this is what a lot of people experienced.

C: How are the compatibility issues now?

BG: Perception still lingers around Vista as being a bit broken – but the reality is different. About 99% of the world’s most popular applications will work on it. And with Service Pack 1, which includes performance enhancements, the experience is fantastic.

C: And then of course you’ll be throwing Windows Seven into the mix. Tell us about that.

BG: Well, like I said, we’ve learned to engage the developer ecosystem earlier and also not wait so long between releases. When Vista released, we said the next version would come out within three years. So that puts us in a January 2010 timeframe.

C: Is that still the official release date? You’ve no doubt seen all the assumptions being made online about a late 2009 release.

BG: Yeah, I know there’s a lot of conjecture and rumour! The communicated date remains January 2010. A lot of that is about quality – we’ve got a billion users who use Windows, which is more than the amount of people who speak the English language. There’s a huge amount of complexity around delivering an OS.

The beta has been really popular – over 10 million people have downloaded it. Overall, we’ve got about 50 major new features in the OS that Vista doesn’t have. A lot of the things we’ve done with Seven have focused on performance – it runs much, much faster. We’ve opened up the whole kernel and gone through line by line to optimise as much as possible.

C: Let’s stay with speed. How will Seven cater to the increasing popularity of netbooks (smaller, lighter versions of notebooks)?

BG: Netbooks make up much less than 10% of the overall PC market – but it’s also the fastest-growing segment. And it opens the door to people who maybe couldn’t afford to get a computer before.

We wanted to make Seven run well on this platform, so people could get the best of both worlds – a well-designed machine for the right price, but one that is also running a modern OS with the best security and battery performance.

C: What would your advice be to people who were considering buying a computer – should they buy a Vista now, or hold off until Seven launches?

BG: If you want a safe, modern OS experience today, then Vista is the one to go for, particularly from a business side of things.

But by all means, as we get closer to a release date, that question will come up more. What we are likely to do is make a deal that allows people who purchase a Vista computer within three months of Seven’s release date to upgrade to the new OS for free.

C: XP came out in two versions (called SKUs). Vista ballooned to five. Now Seven is going to have six. Explain them all, and why they exist?

BG: With the market share we have, there is a great amount of variety in usage. So a home user might never touch many enterprise features and so on.

However, a typical user who goes into a store is going to see only two SKUs on the shelf – Home Premium and Professional. Most consumers will be buying the Home version.

We also have the Starter version, targeted at emerging markets and some netbooks. The major point of it is that it only runs a maximum of three simultaneous applications. If all you’re using it for is web browsing, it’s going to be fine – and that’s who it’s targeted for. Of course, in New Zealand it’s hard to know how that will land. Manufacturers have the choice of which version to put on their netbooks – we think most will still put on Home Premium.

C: Thanks for your time, Ben!

Tristan Clark - Technical Writer

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