Microsoft milestone: Windows 7 completed

Excerpts from the blog

If there were a steeple on Microsoft's Redmond campus, the bells would have been ringing like mad Wednesday afternoon.

That's when the company announced that it had finished Windows 7, the latest version of the flagship-operating system that's the foundation of Microsoft's business.

CEO Steve Ballmer delivered the news at a conference in Atlanta, while Windows President Steven Sinofsky in Redmond posted details on his team's blog.

An excerpt from that post:

"We continue to be overwhelmed at the community's response to Windows 7 and it has been an extremely rewarding experience to witness. We hope the enthusiasm will continue to grow even more as our partners build amazing experiences with their products and Windows 7."

A lot is riding on Windows 7.

Microsoft's difficulty producing Windows Vista and Vista's underwhelming performance raised questions about the company's ability to regularly improve and refresh the horribly complex-operating system powering most of the world's computers.

Vista's problems not only tarnished Microsoft's engineering reputation, but it also opened the door for competitors such as new version of Linux and Apple, which had a resurgence during the Vista era, now coming to a close.

Early reviews of Windows 7 are glowing, and now the software has been completed on time. Technically, Microsoft is now releasing the software to manufacturing.

That means a complete version is being provided to PC makers within a few days, destined for new computers to go on sale in the coming months. Software developers and big companies that buy Windows in bulk can download copies in the first weeks of August.

For the Puget Sound region, Microsoft's success is a refreshing breeze through the haze surrounding the 787. Boeing seems to be having its Vista moment as the engineers scramble to fix significant flaws keeping its new flagship on the ground.

One big difference: More than 10 million people have already been testing early versions of Windows 7 and providing feedback, helping Microsoft refine the product it's releasing today.

The company also said Windows Server 2008 R2 code is also being released to manufacturing.

Jewel of an update

Seattle casual-game giant PopCap is offering a bonus to people who bought its top-selling "Bejeweled 2" game for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

In a month or so, the company plans to issue a free upgrade to the application that adds the ability to compete in short "Blitz" matches between players using an iPhone and players on Facebook.

The upgrade adds the "Blitz" timed game to the mobile application and a button to connect the app to Facebook.

It's partly an experiment for PopCap, which, like most companies in the casual-games space, is exploring ways to make its games more social and interactive with multiple players.

PopCap began offering the "Bejeweled Blitz" game to Facebook users in December.

After it has added to the iPhone app, the company will watch to see how many players want to compete across the platforms and whether most players prefer to continue having solitary "Bejeweled" sessions on the phone.

Company founders provided a preview of the upgraded application during a press event at the Casual Connect game conference in Seattle this week.

Also demonstrated was a new version of its "Bookworm Adventure" franchise, which is set to debut on the PC on July 30, on PopCap.com and Valve's Steam game network.

This material has been edited for print publication.

Brier Dudley's blog excerpts appear Thursdays. Reach him at 206-515-5687 or bdudley@seattletimes.com.