I've posted an article about some of the top Microsoft turkeys through the years. There are some real stinkers in the list, but the list could have been longer, for sure.

Remember DOS 4.0? That's something old-timer, hard-core geeks will recall less than fondly. Internet Explorer 6 was, and is, a giant security hole. What other Microsoft products do you love to hate? Look over the article, then include your own fond memories.

So, this guy "can't give away" his copy of Windows 7. What does it prove? Absolutely nothing.

For those who don't want to follow the link, here's the summary: an editor at a technology magazine had an extra copy of Windows 7, and had difficulty selling it in various venues. His conclusion? Windows 7 must not be a hot commodity after all.

That article is a sterling example of shoddy thinking. He takes one example -- his own experience -- and extrapolates industry trends from it. That's like me saying that my iPhone crashed when I loaded a new application on it, so all iPhones stink, and the apps written for it are garbage.

Uh, no.

I love how all the data show that Windows 7 uptake is roaring along (and it's not all from Microsoft's internal sales figures, either), but because this guy couldn't sell his copy for more than $50 (and he did sell it, by the way, so he did more than "give it away") is solid evidence that all the data is somehow wrong.

Now, this doesn't mean that Windows 7 sales will slow, or that Microsoft is hyping the numbers somehow. Both of those could be true. But to assume that your single experience somehow discounts all available evidence to the contrary is hubris in the extreme.

Remember: You can't believe everything you read on the Internet.

It's not just consumers that are buying Windows 7 like hotcakes; businesses are snapping them up, too.

According to an article in PC World, Dell is among the companies that has seen a boom from Microsoft's newest operating system. Here's a quote from a Dell executive:

"As soon as Oct. 22 hit, both our consumer business and our SMB business had a very healthy increase in demand."

Oct. 22 is when Windows 7 went on sale. "SMB" stands for small- and medium-sized businesses.

This shouldn't really be surprising. The business cycle is generally very slow to adopt new technology, slower than the consumer market as a whole. A large percentage of businesses decided to skip Windows Vista altogether, given the reports of its initial problems like incompatibility with hardware and software.

Many of those businesses are now ready to upgrade to new computers, and the positive reports about Windows 7 will fuel a spending spree, I predict. With the trends in both the consumer and business market segments, Windows 7 has the potential to become Microsoft's most popular product -- ever. Note that I said "potential"; if big problems start cropping up with Windows 7, that momentum could be halted.

Windows 7 just went out the door, and already Microsoft is looking toward Windows 8.

At a recent software developer's conference, reports the website Australian Personal Computer, Microsoft laid out a preliminary roadmap for the successor to Windows 7. Codenamed "Windows 8", a slide from the conference shows a tentative launch year of 2012, making it about three years between Windows 7 and 8. (Note that a codename is a temporary name for a product in development. In most cases, the name changes; in the case of Windows 7, it didn't).

Whether Microsoft hits that target date, however, is another matter entirely. The company is very hit-and-miss about timelines established so far in advance. If Windows 7 ends up being a huge success, it wouldn't surprise me to see a new version of Windows delayed; there would be no great urgency to erase the memories of the last operating system, as happened with Windows Vista.