Don't mention Vienna, Microsoft warns

PRONOUNCEMENTS FROM A VOLE concerning the next version of Vista seem to have caused commotion in the Volehill.

No doubt red-whiskered over the fact that it needed five years to make what it calls a new "operating system", the world's most lucrative software outfit would like folk to concentrate on the fruit of those five years of hard labour rather than start pontificating about what the next flavour of Windows - currently dubbed Vienna - may look like.

As we noted yesterday, Vienna should be upon us within two-and-a-half years, according to the volish blabbermouth. What will the PC look like then? A telly probably. Will anybody be running Vista? Who knows? But so underwhelmed by the product does the market currently seem that it will be surprising if alternatives do not count for a significantly greater share of the PC operating systems market than they do now.

Naturally, the way the world works, Microsoft faces barely a squeak of competition in this particular marketplace because any US expertise there may be in the area is discouraged from taking it on, most likely for reasons of (inter)national security.

There's Linux of course, but lacking the marketing dollars Microsoft has at its command that's barely in with a squeak in the consumer marketplace.

But give it another couple of years and China will no doubt have a super soaraway operating system of its own. Advantages Microsoft may have had in terms of ability to code are obviously floating around the central channel of cobbled streets along with the bathwater. And India. What about all those hungry folk there who do apparently know how to code. There's so many of these pesky foreigners that they probably only have to write a couple of lines of code each to catch up with the bloated Voleware.

Throw in a decent translation and a few billion marketing rupees and Microsoft's illegally-maintained monopoly could easily come under threat.

Miffed with such loose talk, Microsoft overnight attempted to squish all speculation over Vienna. "We are not giving official guidance to the public yet about the next version of Windows, other than that we're working on it. When we are ready, we will provide updates," it proclaimed in a statement.

Ah. OK, we'll shut up now. µ