The PDC (Professional Developers Conference) is ground zero for Microsoft's big new ideas. This year's event, which kicks off on October 27, promises to be the most momentous since 2003, when Microsoft began talking up the technologies underlying Longhorn -- which eventually spawned Vista, Windows Server 2008, and a bunch of important Web services protocols.
The failure of Vista, which Microsoft still stubbornly refuses to acknowledge, raises the stakes for this year's PDC. All eyes will be on Windows 7, which will be revealed behind closed doors to select few (including InfoWorld chief technologist Tom Yager). But as InfoWorld's Randall C. Kennedy has been saying since June, no one should expect Windows 7 to be a major departure from Vista -- it will be more like Vista Second Edition, with similar system requirements. Big surprises seem unlikely.
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