Weighing Windows 7's Wallop

How's your head after that wild Windows 7 launch party with the Stepford crew? Still got the spins? OK, if you really did throw or attend an official Windows 7 launch party, then that's ... interesting. I sincerely hope you had a good time. For the rest of us, the official introduction of Windows 7 was a pretty austere affair. No human billboards this time around, no Santana, no fireworks, and no around-the-block lines at Best Buy (NYSE: BBY), as far as I could tell.

But the size of the party a company throws for itself is no way to measure the success of a new operating system.

Instead, let's try comparing it to completely unrelated goods, like books. By that standard, it's a win: Pre-orders for Windows 7 at Amazon UK topped those of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, whatever that means.

How about your competitors -- are they paying attention? Do they have enough respect for your product that they do a little something to try and steal your thunder, or do they ignore you completely? Well, Apple worked hard to get Snow Leopard to market before Windows 7, then it pushed out some new products earlier this week. And Canonical partnered with IBM to market what they say is desktop alternative to Windows 7. So again, a win! And a loss, because all that other stuff sounds pretty good too.

Good early reviews are good, but Vista got good early reviews too, so maybe they're bad.

Perhaps the way to measure success is if users cling to Windows 7 as tightly as they've been clinging to Windows XP. But that would be some pretty bad news for Microsoft when it comes time to launch Windows 8. Who knew it would be this hard to please everyone?