By SPA
Washington : Microsoft Corporation co-founder Bill Gates said Friday he expects the new version of Windows operating software, currently called Windows 7, to be released “sometime in the next year or so.”
Microsoft has said it expects to release a new version of Windows about three years after the introduction of Vista in early 2007. A company spokeswoman said Gates’ comments are in line with a development cycle that usually releases a test version of the software before its official introduction.
“I’m super-enthused about what it will do in lots of ways, ” Gates said at a seminar on corporate philanthropy held during an annual meeting in Miami of the Inter-American Development Bank. “That’ll be sometime in the next year or so that we’ll have a new version.”
Gates, who is scheduled to quit his daily functions at the software giant and dedicate his time to the philanthropic efforts of the Gates Foundation in June, said Microsoft is using its $6 billion annual research budget to take its software products to “the next level.”
Gates said the new versions of Windows would help revolutionize mobile telephones and run the desk of the future, which would have a touch surface display allowing users to access programs using their hands.