Vista now OFFICIALLY the red-headed stepchild everyone knew it was

Steve Ballmer (whom is the CEO of Microsoft, not Bill Gates <--Retired) made some pretty exciting announcements at this years Consumer Electronics Show (CES). One of the announcements was the public availabilty of the new Microsoft OS simply known as Windows 7. The beta will be publicly available tomorrow (Friday Jan 9) to the first 2.5 Million people who download it. The new operating system is promised to be more reliable and user friendly than Microsoft's current operating system, Vista. One thing to note about the beta is, you can only upgrade from Vista SP1 (i.e., you can't go from XP to 7). Currently Microsoft is working on cheap upgrade programs to make the transition a little less bitter for people who may have recently forked out cash for Vista.

This basically ends the "Vista era" and now we can all move on (unless you're Apple's marketing director).

For some more information on the new OS, some of its new features, or its intened mid-2009 release date check out some of these links:

• Microsoft's CES 2009 Press Release
• Windows' Team Blog
• Gizmodo's "Microsoft's guided tour of the windows 7 taskbar"