The oversimplified, snarky answer is implied in your shorthand for Microsoft (M$): they are a large, formal organization with publicly traded stock at the center of their finances. They are under unrelenting pressure to produce accounting numbers that look good to Wall Street.

As we are all painfully learning more about these days, the high finance crowd tends to emphasize the appearance of short-term success over consistent evidence of long-term value. When you put that general principle into software-biz terms, you get products that are forced onto the market before they are ready because a majority of the final decision-makers care more about their 'scorecard numbers' than they do about the true quality of the software that they're overseeing.

You can look at Stardock's work in the game market as a case study of how things can be different when a software shop is led by a working dev who only needs to answer to his customers and employees. (OK, maybe to a banker or three--but business debts with banks are profoundly different from the obligations a firm assumes by publicly issuing stock.) Stardock games are released when the devs are ready to put their work in public. More importantly, they stand behind their software both as responsive bug-fixers and artisans who are proud enough of their own work to keep offering substantial updates based on customer response well after RTM.

OK...how about $10 per improvement/brand new feature?

Well Windows server 2003 came out right after XP.   So I wouldn't be surprised if there is a server version to be released within a year and do not count that as a new OS.

If you count NT/2000/server 2003 as its own string of OS's seperate from windows 3/95/98/ME/XP then the average is 2-3 years between OS versions (they are 1992/1995/1998/2000/2002 respectivly) I expect this that Windows 7-8 gap will be the same 2 years.    Initial versions of Longhorn (that became vista) came out in 2005-2006 again meeting this 2-3 year gap and making 2-3 year to windows 7 still sync up.  Just long horn wasn't remotely stable until 2007 when they FINALLY made public release.   However you see the link is still there.   2000 (me) > 2001/2002 (XP) > 2005 (Longhorn: Not released)  >  2007 (vista) > 2009 (win 7)  you still have a fairly consistant about 2 year gap between OS.

Alternatively, the initial versions of XP came out in 2001 I believe (as I just looked it up.  I remember it being 2002, but so goes memory), meaning that the ME-XP gap could be said to be 1 year, which would be similar to Vista (spring 2008)-Win7.  ME was something "new" and XP was this same idea "but done right".   If it follows the ME to XP/ Vista to Win7 tradition then we won't see a WIN 8 for like 4 years, and it will suck.  Then WIN9 will come out about a year later and be good.

EDIT:  -the point is not to growl an MS for releasing on a schedule.   Its not JUST a scheme, they follow a fairly consistant development cycle and since I don't see longhorn on my system (or any other) they obviously arn't so stupid to release unless they think its something worth releasing.   As a tech-support agent, I defend vista for being much more stupid-user friendly and was a very good step in the right direction.  I don't use it myself, but I feel that most of the changes it makes are very logical and the new interface I think is an improvement if I can get over the fact that "its not like it used to be"

My favorite quote on that "Just because we've always done it, doesn't mean its not stupid".  Vista was an attempt to fix something broken (office is a better example, the classic file/edit/view toolbar is dumb / out of date and should be done away for something better )

Well I think it was more about "fruit of wisdom" in general.  I do not believe an "apple" is a 100% accurate translation. 

That being said, I do not believe he would use Leopard because Leopard has problems with WEP-open vs. WEP-shared security for some reason.  Not as much as 10.3 did, but more than 10.4 did (in my experiance).   I can't imagine he would use something that can't consistantly connect to a 802.11 standard (no matter how lame WEP is).

He's Jesus.

He can fit however much onto a floppy he wants.

LAMO++

Typo?

I don't think so ....

Not really.

God has to play by His own rules,

What?? A beta with *problems*? No way

attempting to install driver based software (like daemon tools or the clone drive) pretty much exploded windows 7. others are also not compatible, and using IE8 beta in it means that netflix doesn't work with it either. Also while you are told it "uses the same drivers as vista", attempting to install a vista driver pretty much ruins it. nVidia and ATI and the like are all providing the latest updates to their drivers for windows 7 via windows update only at the moment, so no need to download and install things manually.

Overyall its a very nice beta, but I went back to windows vista 64bit and will remain there unitl more programs support windows 7

Gobble Gobble goo and Gobble Gobble giggle, I wish windows 7 only cost a nickel.