Just in time for the holiday shopping season, Microsoft launched its Windows 7. This new windows operating system was developed more than 1.5 years ago. It is faster and much better than its predecessors, Windows XP and the little-loved Windows Vista, which seriously damaged the company’s reputation.

Vista turned into one of Microsoft's biggest lapses. The operating system that was initially pitched as a revolutionary evolution in computing, failed to gain the consumers after it became clear that Vista was sluggish, with poor security features and didn't work well with third-party software.

For that reason, the majority of businesses and users, who were disappointed and chose to skip Vista, are still running an 8-year-old operating system XP on their computers.

Windows 7's first big week has gone smoothly so far. As expected, the new operating system is quite well received by consumers and businesses.

Over the past few months beta testers (according to Microsoft, eight million participants from 113 countries have taken part in the beta testing of Windows 7) have given Windows 7 positive reviews. Even the Wall Street Journal tech columnist Walt Mossberg admitted that "the best version of Windows Microsoft has produced."

According to a joint survey of 1,500 businesses conducted by Information Technology Intelligence Corp. and Sunbelt Software, sixty percent of businesses plan to eventually deploy Windows 7. More specifically, 49 percent of respondents plan to migrate to Windows 7 within the next 12 months, and 30 percent plan to upgrade in the next six months. That is undoubtedly a promising start for the new operating system.

For many users, their introduction to Windows 7 will be when they buy a new computer. In fact, PC makers have already started to flood the stores with new computers pre-loaded with Windows 7, and to offer the software to Vista owners who want to upgrade.

A major drawback of Windows 7, however, is that XP users won’t be able to install Windows 7 without having to reinstall their applications. That is not the case, when upgrading from Vista.

The future of Microsoft, which reported their first-ever fiscal-year revenue drop in July, seems brighter with the launch of Windows 7.