Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
Reports from various websites say the current torrent download is the real deal, although license and activation keys are not yet available from Microsoft and aren’t expected for couple of weeks or so, and there are no guarantees it really is the true “beta 1”.
But everyone seems certain that it is, so if you’re dead keen to get your hands on Windows 7 beta 1 and try it out right now, there are means and ways to do just that.
But if you’re not, then just sit tight and wait for the official release, and that would certainly be Microsoft’s official advice and position.
It may still be a different build yet, although that is unlikely, but at least an official build is effectively guaranteed of being spyware and malware free – unless you think Windows itself is spyware and malware, of course, and a few Mac and Linux users certainly do think that.
But for the rest of the Windows using world, the dawn of the Windows 7 era is finally about to start, and at least for the next several months, Microsoft’s latest and greatest will be free to download and use, and your feedback could actually still shape the final product.
The official beta 1 is expected to be even more solid than the 6801 and 6956 builds that preceded it, so excitement is understandably high.
But given that both beta and RTM software comes with no guarantees anyway, and that consumers today are well used to using beta products for months, if not years on end, chances are that plenty of people won’t be waiting until possibly November 2009 for Windows 7 to launch, but will jump on board right away and see if Windows 7 leads to a Microsoft-esque computing heaven!
Plenty of XP upgrades could soon happen, at least in consumer homes, and speculation will continue over just when Microsoft will release beta 2, the RC release candidate, and then the RTM (release to manufacturing) final gold version - and whether all of that will happen sooner rather than later.
A lot will clearly depend on just how good the official beta 1 version of Windows 7 turns out to be, any future betas (if still planned, apparently there will only be one), and then the release candidate itself.
Good luck whatever you decide to do, and whichever OS you decide is for you.
David Bass
| For the fourth year in a row, IDC has placed content security provider Websense (NASDAQ: WBSN) at the top of the IDC Worldwide Web Security 2011 –…
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