Intel and Microsoft have been collaborating for more than 20 years. The day Microsoft launched Windows Vista; we had already been collaborating on Windows 7. The joint team quickly grew to several hundred engineers. Last week, the work we did together became a reality. While marrying Intel’s future Intel Core processors with Microsoft’s latest operating system was quite possibly the biggest undertaking to date for the two companies, there was a very short list of top priorities from users.

First, make notebooks run longer (“I want to watch the whole DVD on the airplane.”). Second, make it run everything faster (“I want to start work when I turn it on and don’t want that DVD, encryption or anything else to slow it down.”) So, Microsoft and Intel set to work.

A few weeks ago we had the opportunity to show some journalists what our engineers had come up with as a result of the collaboration. The resulting stories provide a good overview of some of the unique advances that the collaboration achieved to improve PCs.

Don’t we all hate it when the latest blockbuster we brought along for a long plane ride drains the laptop battery right at the climax. Of course, the same is true of other mobile situations – catching up at coffee shops, sharing photos and videos with friends, comparing prices while shopping – where plugging in is either a hassle or impossible.

To get to the movies’ credits, the team optimized resource utilization throughout the system. Devices were aggressively powered down, busses shut off when possible and Intel processors were kept in their Deep Power Down state longer and more often. The new Microsoft Windows 7 timer coalescing feature, which minimizes the time a processor is running in high gear, to take advantage of Intel Deep Power Down Technology is a good example of how we worked together to optimize our products. By applying such power saving techniques throughout the system and reducing resource utilization Microsoft and Intel engineers were able to reduce power usage of a Windows 7 laptop nearly 20 percent over an identical laptop running Windows Vista SP2. That gained an additional 1.4 hours of battery life, enough extra power to blow by the credits and see all of the special features.

Getting computers to do things faster is something Microsoft and Intel have been doing for a couple of decades. However, with Windows 7 and Intel’s new Core processors rolling out at roughly the same time, the team saw the opportunity to really put rocket engines on PCs. Possibly the most significant performance advancement is enabling the Windows 7 kernel to intelligently manipulate threads in the recently improved Intel Hyper-Threading Technology. The kernel scheduler juggles thread connections with respect to such things as logical processor/core relationships, thread-to-core distribution, and parking and unparking second logical processors in cores to match the workload. Also, the Westmere system we showed reporters was equipped with Intel Solid State Drives, reflecting another area of collaboration.

Skip the formal benchmarks. The companies made their point by booting a PC based on an Intel reference design in less than 11 seconds. Actually, that may be too fast for many as it doesn’t allow sufficient time to get a cup of coffee that many of us are used to doing.

OK, I have a vested interest, but with Windows 7 getting such hardy reviews and its optimization for new advances in Intel processors, now seems to me like a pretty good time to buy a new PC.

Joakim Lialias
Microsoft Alliance Manager - Intel

Today I’m excited to unveil our latest new performance machine: Windows 7 and Lenovo Think computers! It’s like showing off your latest high performance sports car at the big race. We’ve spent a lot of time and expertise getting ready to introduce Windows 7 on Lenovo’s Think business computers and now we get to show it off and share how we did it.

You have to analyze your vehicle first in order to improve performance. Lenovo engineers’ efforts began several years ago by analyzing every detail of the Windows Operating System environment, our PCs and software. That gave us a great foundation that determined where to concentrate our efforts. We worked closely with Microsoft to utilize this knowledge during Windows 7 development to improve the overall Windows 7 experience. Microsoft developers did some great things to speed up the operating system such as modifying when and how hard disk activities run to reduce delays to the user. We at Lenovo focused primarily on the computer components and our own ThinkVantage software.

Like a finely tuned race car, it’s not just the engine you worry about. To get optimal performance you need to design performance into all the components from the ground up. For Lenovo this meant improvements in the (suspension) with the computer firmware being aware and skipping unused hardware function tests, we overhauled the (transmission) with performance aware device drivers, ThinkVantage applications re-engineered for (aerodynamics) speed by eliminating background services and running them just when needed, found the best industry applications (tires) and then the entire system (car) was tuned through the system settings to take maximum advantage of all the component improvements.

Now you don’t just enter a race without trying out your design at the track, so we put the Lenovo Think PCs through rigorous testing and internal pilot testing. Our team has run these PCs around the track for more than six months to make sure we are ready.

This isn’t just a race to see how fast you are off the starting line; it is also about endurance and the driving experience. All Lenovo’s performance work also improves the driving experience and extends your track time between fuel stops. By improving the performance we’ve reduced the amount of power consumption which extends battery life, reduces energy consumption and makes our Think computers a leader in green computing. A key contributor is ThinkVantage Power Manger with an easy new power slider and can save up to $71 annually in energy costs on a ThinkCentre M52 desktop running the Lenovo default power mode.

Lenovo announced the Lenovo Enhanced Experience certification program in September, with our performance efforts as a key ingredient to bringing you great new computers with Windows 7. We’ve made great strides including improved boot speed by up to 57 percent and shut down by up to 39 percent on select Think PCs versus non-optimized, identical configuration PCs running Vista and XP. To take advantage of this new experience Lenovo is encouraging customers to migrate from Windows XP to Windows 7 through our Lenovo Enhanced Experience program.

How can Lenovo share this great new racing technology with our business customers? Smaller businesses can easily get the benefit of Lenovo Enhanced Experience for Windows 7 experience by purchasing a new Lenovo Think computer today with Windows 7 ready to go out of the box. Larger companies who create their own unique software image can benefit immediately from firmware, device drivers and ThinkVantage Technology software improvements on new Think computers. For larger companies that want the full Lenovo Enhanced Experience for Windows 7, Lenovo offers a new service where Lenovo engineers use our expertise to performance tune the customer’s software image.

We expect Windows 7 and Lenovo Enhanced Experience to give users the best new computing experience in a decade, and that gives us a higher platform to continue developing the next generations of innovative PC technology.

For more information including a list of Lenovo PCs Enhanced for Windows 7 please visit our Lenovo Enhanced Experience for Windows 7 web page.

Peter Schrady
Vice President & General Manager; Software, Peripherals and Enterprise Products
(And an avid racing enthusiast!)

At Staples, we’re glad to be able to offer the power and impressive new features of Windows 7 to our customers. The ability to find files in only two clicks, or to start up and shut down quickly, will make day-to-day computing so much easier. However, we want customers to be able to continue to enjoy the features of Windows 7 just as much after six months as they do on the very first day. That’s why we are on a quest to remind people that PC maintenance is just as important to software performance as routine oil changes are to keeping cars running smoothly.

As people spend more time online and doing work, they should be conducting preventative maintenance every 3-6 months, depending on the age and usage of the computer. With all of the impressive media management features in Windows 7, we expect customers to be even more active with storing and sharing photos, music, games and entertainment. But if customers do not take proper steps toward safeguarding their PCs, they won’t be able to really get the most out of the new operating system.

While Staples EasyTech service provides a range of tech services at our stores, anyone can follow some simple steps at home to keep any computer, and Windows 7, running smoothly:

• Have an antivirus solution and keep it up to date.
• Use Windows Disk Cleanup to safely remove any temporary files from your hard drive.
• Store computers in a well-ventilated area and be sure to clean out any dust or dirt that has accumulated inside the computer case.
• Check for Windows Updates. Periodically visit Windows Update to download any security patches and drivers that are available for your computer.
• Back up digital files, music and photos on an external hard drive.

Look, most drivers are not experts when it comes to what’s happening under the hood of their car, and we really need to think about PCs in a similar way. Put a reminder on your calendar twice a year to spend an hour on your PC maintenance so you can continue to enjoy the media and performance capabilities of the new Windows 7.

Bob MacDonald,
Vice President of Technology Services, Staples

Windows Touch holds the promise of fundamentally changing the way users interact with their devices. One of the ways this will happen is by opening up the power of multi-touch to new audiences, which I believe will transform how design and engineering professionals currently interface with the tools of their trade.

The powerful functionality afforded by Windows 7 will also open up new possibilities for other professionals, allowing them to meet their simpler design needs without the steep learning curve of industrial-strength design software like AutoCAD, which has been an industry standard for over 27 years.

In this respect, Windows 7 is helping Autodesk to further democratize design.

Today in New York at the Windows 7 launch event, Autodesk will be showcasing a new technology product that we’ve developed for design enthusiasts to do simple and elegant drawing and drafting. Project Cooper will allow users to easily and quickly create professional-looking drawings and sketches, or precise drawings with real-world dimensions, and share this information with others who may be working in AutoCAD or with other professional applications.

Project Cooper has been engineered to take full advantage of Windows 7 support for multi-touch, including panning, zooming, rotation and flick functionality – which makes this application easier and more approachable for both mobile users and anyone using a touch-enabled machine.

Windows 7 support for multi-touch will be especially important in situations when using a keyboard and a mouse is frankly impractical. During our research we met folks like interior designers, home remodelers, event planners, and contractors who wanted an easy way to be productive when away from the office, such as visiting a project site. That’s why I believe that Windows 7 has the potential to significantly change the life of mobile professionals—by allowing them to perform complex tasks on the go using simple, intuitive gestures.

Overall my experience working on Windows 7 to develop Project Cooper has been that almost everything is faster and simpler, and we know this will be a welcome development for our customers. This is the same philosophy that guided the creation of Project Cooper – the ability to start sketching right away—without any training, with an intuitive user interface and straightforward interaction – just like Windows 7.

For the new Windows 7 users, not just those with multi-touch machines, we encourage you to put your new OS to the test and download the Project Cooper – it is being released as a technology preview so you can try it out ahead of the final version – and be sure to tell us what you think!

Amjad Hanif
Senior Director, Product Management
Emerging Products

The day we’ve all been waiting for—as hardware vendors, software developers and consumers—is finally here! And no one is more excited than all of us at ASUS, as it marks the culmination of the collaborative and proprietary work we've been putting into developing Windows 7 products.

Our product development team has been keeping close pace with our counterparts over in Microsoft ever since the inception of the Windows 7 project. Our mission from the outset was simple: to deliver a unique Windows 7 experience. We’ve stayed true to that purpose throughout, and our customers can be assured that ASUS products aren’t just seamlessly compatible and in perfect synergy with the new operating system, they are also designed to enhance and extend the overall Windows 7 experience.

As an example, I’d like to call some attention to the key innovations we’ve introduced to ASUS notebooks running Windows 7: FastBoot and Turbo33. Available on many of ASUS’ notebook lines, such as the new UL Series and ROG (Republic of Gamers) Series, these features work in perfect concert with—and build upon—the functionality and capabilities in Windows 7.

FastBoot is an exciting feature on ASUS notebooks running Windows 7. Through our close collaboration with Microsoft, we’ve managed to tweak our hardware such that notebooks with FastBoot can boot up to 40% faster* than similarly-spec’ed notebooks without the technology. Boot up times can be as low as 30 seconds*.

The other technology I’d like to highlight is called Turbo33. I’m not at liberty to reveal the ‘secret sauce’ behind this remarkable technology, but ASUS notebooks with Turbo33 will allow users to enjoy exceptionally smooth video playback and online video streaming, as well as rock-solid stability when engaging in processor-intensive multitasking.

These technologies have been an absolute joy to design and implement, and it has been particularly rewarding witnessing how effectively they enhance the overall Windows 7 experience. But rest assured, we won't be stopping here. If there's one thing ASUS is known for, it’s our constant desire to improve the status quo. The promise of innovation is something that customers can always count on us to deliver upon—and the same will be true for all ASUS products that run on, or support, Windows 7.

We also expect the launch of Windows 7 to usher in a new golden age of gaming on the PC platform, and are poised to provide the best hardware for all types of gamers. Over the years, our ROG brand has forged a formidable reputation in the gaming arena, first with our top-performing gaming motherboards and graphics cards, then our aggressively spec’ed gaming notebooks.

ROG products stand apart because we’ve designed them around the needs, preferences and gameplay styles of the best gamers today. We’ve gained these insights by engaging gamers at many levels and on many fronts. ASUS, for example, supports some of the biggest eSports and LAN party events in the world. Just this year, we participated in 62 World GameMaster Tournament (WGT) events around the world, reaching 4,004,892 gamers in total. We were also involved in DreamHack Winter, Sweden; ASSEMBLY, Finland; GamesCon, Germany; and Campus Party, Spain which drew over 10,000, 3,500, 245,000 and 6,500 gamers respectively.

We are also strongly committed to supporting online gaming communities. We have an ongoing collaboration with ESL, the biggest online game portal in the Europe with over 35,000 active players. We cooperate closely with top game publishers worldwide as well, including Blizzard, Ubisoft and EA. We were a Platinum Sponsor at Blizzcon09 earlier this year—a two-day event that drew 30,000 visitors—and had a solid presence at Quakecon09 which saw over 7,000 attendees.

Through the stress testing, surveys and focus groups we conduct through these events and initiatives, we are able to take away a wealth of useful and actionable knowledge—knowledge that we’ve used to make our products better. Our ROG Windows 7 solutions are the ultimate realization of all the gaming expertise we’ve accrued to date.

I’d like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to Microsoft. Windows 7 is an amazing operating system, and things will only get more exciting from here on. On ASUS’ part, you have our assurance that we’ll keep racking our brains to conceive the most meaningful and relevant products, technologies and features for today’s savvy consumers and avid gamers.

Tony Chen
Vice president of ASUS System Business Group

* System performance is subject to system configuration. This data is based on a comparison between a FastBoot-optimized ASUS notebook running 64-bit Windows 7 and an identically-spec’ed notebook without FastBoot running 32-bit Windows Vista. For detailed test results, please visit http://event.asus.com/2009/nb/disclaimer/win7/.

Today’s launch is something Corel’s software teams have been looking forward to for many months. Windows 7 and Windows Touch are the most exciting things we’ve seen in computing for a long time.

To coincide with the launch of Windows 7, Corel has released two all-new products that re-invent the typical menu-driven user experience, offering consumers more expressive and interactive creative environments. Engaging and dramatically different UI designs let users get the most out of Windows 7 by providing a more natural way of interacting with your PC. It’s all about removing barriers to creativity. Nothing gets between you and your inspiration.

Windows Touch has given our software teams the opportunity to push the limits of user experience. Sometimes computing can feel a bit detached – you sit at your computer, input info with your keyboard and mouse, and see the results displayed on screen. But with our new interface designs and Windows Touch, the computing experience gets an entirely new personal dimension, solidifying the PC’s place as the creative hub of the home.

Watch the video called “A new kind of software” at www.corel.com/windows7 to see Corel’s user experience designer, Jennifer Fraser, explain how Windows 7 and Windows Touch impacted our software design. Jennifer discusses how this amazing new OS offered Corel’s development team the opportunity to offer new experiences that foster creativity and build stronger connections between users and their content, whether it’s a painting, family snapshot or home movie. Jennifer explains our overall approach to designing consumer creative products and gives a quick glimpse at two of our new Windows Touch-enabled products, Corel Digital Studio 2010 and Corel Paint it! Touch, which was announced today.

With our long history of working closely with Microsoft, particularly around the introductions of new operating systems, we speak from experience when we say that they’ve really got it right with Windows 7. This new platform offers unprecedented power and stability, enabling Corel to deliver products that help customers create, connect and interact with their home PC in ways never before possible.

Joe Roberts
Executive Vice President – Products