10,000 Windows 7-Friendly Products promised by Microsoft

According to a senior Microsoft official, in an effort to avoid the compatibility problems that plagued Windows Vista, as many as 10,000 hardware and software companies are already working on products that will work with Windows 7 when it arrives later this year.
Microsoft has good reason to be concerned about compatibility. Windows Vista's January 2007 debut was marred by the fact that a number of major products from high-profile vendors like Adobe, Intel, IBM, and Symantec didn't work with Windows Vista. Adobe, for instance, didn't release a Vista-compatible PostScript driver until months after the Operating System hit the market.

The glitches were a major reason behind Vista's failure to build momentum in the enterprise market, where software and hardware compatibility is a major factor in customers' purchasing decisions. Ultimately, only a handful of Fortune 500 companies upgraded their business PCs to Windows Vista. Most have stuck with the older Windows XP operating system.

Microsoft is confident that the problem won't repeat when Windows 7 rolls out later this year.

The senior official also disclosed that Microsoft expects to finish work on Windows 7 by about mid-August this year.