Microsoft's Windows 7 gets a public beta release -- with good reviews

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) has finally made its Windows 7 operating system available for anybody to download, install and test. The beta release of its flagship software went public over the past weekend to generally good reviews. As Windows Vista seems to have a very negative perception in the market (even with hundreds of millions sold with new PCs), the company's marketing efforts centered around Vista's January 2007 release fell flat.

Vista was almost instantly regarded as too slow, too intensive for all but the latest PC technology and its constant pop-up warnings were seen as a huge annoyance. In other words, all the security concerns addressed in Vista -- probably its biggest feature -- were constantly being figuratively spray-painted on customers faces every day. With Windows 7 -- which looks and feels much like Vista -- Microsoft has made extreme advances in speed and responsiveness while making the overall environment easier to navigate and use.

Customers don't need to have the latest and greatest PC to run Microsoft's arguably best operating system ever. But still one question remains -- how on earth does Microsoft advertise and market Windows 7 -- when it is released -- to assuage Vista-like fears? Customers don't easily forget, and even though Windows 7 just made a significant milestone with a beta software release anyone can download and use, the bigger challenge will be regaining the trust of the computing world once Windows 7 is released. That's probably a harder job than the work required by thousands of software engineers to create the operating system itself.