In a conference held in Las Vegas, two Gartner analysts presented a report titled "Windows Is Collapsing: How What Comes Next Will Improve." Citing reasons such as Microsoft’s failure to innovate and introduce new features in its operating system, the complexity of Windows and the increasing migration of users to the OS-independent applications, Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald concluded that, "for Microsoft, its ecosystem and its customers, the situation is untenable."

The conference put the IT world on fire. On blogs and elsewhere, the debate is on: are the two Gartner analysts right or are they way off track? As Silver and MacDonald pointed out, there is a big IF. Microsoft will have to deal with this apocalyptic scenario, only IF they won’t be able to prove they are able to innovate and create “a thinner, smaller and modular” version of Windows. Windows Vista failed to meet these criteria, therefore its lack of success.

But Microsoft already has in developing an operating system which will meet them. In October 2007, Microsoft's Distinguished Engineer Eric Traut has demonstrated during a presentation at the University of Illinois, a version of the Windows kernel, called MinWin, which has just 100 files and 25MB. The small kernel will allegedly be a part of Windows 7, which seeks to componentize the Windows kernel and reduce the dependencies, with the purpose of reducing the disk footprint and memory usage.

Bill Gates speaking recently before the Inter-American Development Bank said that we can expect Windows 7 "sometime in the next year": "Sometime in the next year or so we will have a new version," he actually said.

This statement created widespread confusion as most people understood that the final version of Windows 7 would be released next year, much earlier than expected. However, since this was Gates talking, and with all the fuss concerning Vista's failure on the market, people started wondering whether Microsoft changed its plans and wants to speed up the release of Windows 7, the next operating system from the Redmond company, due to replace Vista.

However, a Microsoft spokesman told CNN that in fact the industry veteran was talking about alpha or beta versions, as it usually happens, and not the final product. In fact, an early version was already shipped in 2007 to selected testers and partners: Windows 7 Milestone 1 (build 6.1.6519.1).

On the long run, Microsoft is going to find it hard to compete with smaller Web applications and devices, which is quite the trend right now. Microsoft will also have to acknowledge that its operating system needs to adjust to low-cost low-powered computers, which made Linux the preferred OS for this sort of devices.

How Windows 7 will be designed will be the turning point in Windows' destiny, in that respect Gartner is indeed right. Hopefully for them, Microsoft apparently learned from its past mistakes and will come back with an innovative operating system - maybe its first ever!