Mary Jo Foley poses the question Can Microsoft speed the pace of Windows? I can see an annual release of Windows, but with a lot of caveats. No more Service Packs, as these would replace them. Low cost to upgrade. Backward compatibility between major releases. Downside: major fragmentation. Developers, technicians, system admins would be catering to the lowest common denominator. Enterprises would update every 5-7 years, but on various schedules (one may start in 2015, another in 2017). Would they want them all synchronized, or can they co-exist in various versions across the network and still be secure? They would be minor releases with only a year of development, beta testing, and release.

Lots of questions, but a very plausible scenario. What do you think?

But given there’s no true cloud complement to the Windows client, does that rule out Microsoft ever moving toward more frequent Windows releases on x86/x64 platforms? Will business users balk if Microsoft puts Windows on a faster delivery track? And does Microsoft, with its new emphasis on introducing products first designed for consumers rather than businesses (then later adding business functionality), care all that much?