Windows 7 takes center "stage"

Choice was the watchword in the Windows 7 discussion Wednesday, as Microsoft aimed to highlight what it sees as its chief advantage over rival Apple.

Steven Sinofsky, sporting a bit of a Steve Jobs look, shows off Windows 7 at the WinHEC 2008 conference in Los Angeles.

While the new Windows will enable high-end machines with multitouch, it will also work on low-end machines. While Vista has largely been absent in the fast-growing Netbook category, Windows 7 is aimed to work well on such low-end devices--a number of which are on display at WinHEC.

Among the machines Microsoft showed was an Eee PC with a 1GB hard drive and a 16GB solid-state drive, which the software maker said could run Windows 7 with "room to spare".

For hardware makers, Microsoft has a feature called "device stage" that lets them offer up things like manuals, links to services, and access to content stored on the device in one place.

On stage, Microsoft showed a Nokia phone hooked up to Windows 7, automatically making available all the content on the device.
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