
The five-year development cycle for Vista had been too long, according to Ballmer, and was not something that Microsoft would be repeating.
"Can we just sort of kiss that stone and move on?" he asked. "Because it turns out many things become problematic when you have those long release cycles. We can't ever let that happen again."
Ballmer confirmed that Windows 7 will be released in 2010, but would not be drawn on whether Microsoft will extend the deadline for selling new computers running XP beyond 1 July.
"I know we are going to continue to get feedback from people on how long XP should be available," he said. "We have some opinions on that. We have expressed our views."