Windows 7 to arrive next year, says Bill Gates

You know, we should have paid a little closer attention to Microsoft’s decision yesterday to extend Windows XP sales to “June 2010 or one year after the general availability of Windows 7” — if the company was really planning on shipping Windows 7 in 2010 , that first date doesn’t make a lot of sense unless the plan is to ship Windows 7 much, much earlier. And hey — what’s Bill Gates doing telling investors this afternoon that Windows 7 will come “in the next year” and that he’s “super-enthused” about it? As far as we know, the official Windows 7 timeline hasn’t changed, so Bill might just talking about beta versions, but something’s clearly up Windows-wise in Redmond — perhaps Vista’s wow is not long for this now. [Thanks, Jon]