Vista will mean the end of the Microsoft monolith

Vista is two years late, bloated, and creating it even taxed the resources of a company the size of Microsoft. It may also signal the end of the monster operating system.

Virtualization is coming soon. This is the ability to run virtual operating systems on the same box. Once that happens, a behemoth like Vista is no longer needed, as you’ll be able to run, say, XP, Vista, Ubuntu, and whatever simultaneously in separate windows. Then a new Vista-like OS wouldn’t have to be backwards compatible, and thus would be way slimmed down, faster, and better-designed.

Another trend no doubt will be towards what Linux already does. They release the core, then anyone can build around it, creating whatever version they want. Thus Microsoft could release the core of whatever OS comes after Vista, then developers would add whatever functionality they want, tweaking the OS to fit their specific needs. Again, this keep things much smaller, better-designed, and easier to upgrade and change.

My guess: Microsoft will have to do this whether they want to or not.