There’s some talk around that Microsoft’s new Windows operating system, codenamed Vienna, is scheduled for 2009.

However, if past experience is anything to go on, it might be better to call it Windows Manyana.

Microsoft originally planned for Windows Vista (Project Longhorn) to include a number of radical innovations, including a new file handling system, WinFS, and a reijigged user interface, but, in 2003, Microsoft redirected almost its software effort to locking down Windows with XP Service Pack 2.

“We put Longhorn on the back burner for awhile,” said a spokesman. “Then when we came back to it, we realized that there were incremental things that we wanted to do, and significant improvements that we wanted to make in Vista that we couldn’t deliver in one release.”

Windows Vista has now shipped about two-and-a-half years after XP SP 2, and Vista’s follow-up is expected to take about the same amount of time, according to the company. “You can think roughly two, two-and-a-half years is a reasonable time frame that our partners can depend on and can work with,” he said. “That’s a good timeframe for refresh.”

We shall see.

Microsoft opens its web-based Small Business Summit this week : “… a nationwide event that provides small businesses with the tools and information they need to help their business soar”.

I’m guessing they hope to sell a lot of proprietary software off the back of this. It will be interesting to see which products they are pushing. Windows Vista and Office 2007 are sure to figure hugely.

Let’s remember though that Microsoft was a small business once It began as a startup in a garage by two geeky kids called Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Bill even dropped out of Harvard to do it. That’s the motor of all entrepreneurial activity.

More than 30,000 small-business owners and partners from around the country are expected to participate in this free event held online with a first-day event in Redmond, Washington. The summit features more than 58 sessions covering small-business topics including branding, sales and marketing, security, business efficiency and mobility, and participants have the flexibility to join online from their home or office. In addition, small-business owners can go to their local participating CompUSA store to watch the webcasts, network with peers and have a direct dialogue with Microsoft and CompUSA representatives who understand their unique technology and business needs.

Here’s yesterday’s transcript of keynote remarks by Kevin Turner, Chief Operating Officer, Microsoft Corporation, Microsoft Small Business Summit 2007.

Mary Jo Foley asks : “Is Windows Vista … the last big-bang release of Windows.”

At a Convergence conference yesterday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had no doubt. A questioner asked him : “With all the hoopla here at the conference around SharePoint Server, is it correct to think of SharePoint as almost like an operating system?”

“Microsoft officials increasingly are talking up ‘Software + Services’, as opposed to ‘Software as a Service’ in explaining Microsoft’s future. So how does Microsoft keep the growing family of business services it is introducing tethered to on-premise software?”

SharePoint Server is the obvious answer, avers Foley. No, not Windows. And not Windows Server either. Not even Office. But simply SharePoint.

Ballmer answered the questioner in positive terms :

“SharePoint is the definitive OS or platform for the middle tier.” It is the “missing link”, Foley explains, “between personal productivity and line-of-business applications”.

“SharePoint is just like Office; it’s a bunch of point products gathered together into a suite. Although Microsoft is not fond of calling out the six or so servers that comprise Office SharePoint Server, it is a bunch of server apps loosely joined.”

Microsoft is currently experimenting with making SharePoint Server “the new, must-have platform for its business users. Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) is the captive laboratory for Microsoft’s Software + Services experiments.”

How will that affect the consumer end of the market, we wonder?

So what now is the general view of Windows Vista after a month or so in the real world?

After scouring various sites and outlets, the comments in the Wall Street Journal by Walter S. Mossberg struck me as closest to reality :

“Vista is much prettier than previous versions of Windows. Its icons look better, windows have translucent borders, and items in the taskbar and in folders can display little previews of what they contain. Security is supposedly vastly better …”

However, it’s not as radical as once promised :

“After months of testing Vista on multiple computers, new and old, I believe it is the best version of Windows that Microsoft has produced. However, while navigation has been improved, Vista isn’t a breakthrough in ease of use. Overall, it works pretty much the same way as Windows XP. Windows hasn’t been given nearly as radical an overhaul as Microsoft just applied to its other big product, Office.”

We know of course that much of the new engine was removed in the panic-fuelled rewrite of the code in 2004, especially in the file handling department. Also :

“There are some big downsides to this new version of Windows. To get the full benefits of Vista, especially the new look and user interface, which is called Aero, you will need a hefty new computer, or a hefty one that you purchased fairly recently.”

So, a bit disappointing and still slightly out of reach for most folk in the market for a new computer.

We hear that the first System Pack upgrade is just around the corner. Same old, same old from Microsoft it seems.