From the ashes of Vista, what might rise?

Amid an overwhelmingly negative presentation from analyst group Gartner that claims "Windows is collapsing," many are beginning to wonder what is in store for Windows 7, and how radical a departure from its current code base W7 might be.

Vista is clearly the straw that has broken the camel's back. Years and years of bloated code and a failed attempt to support 20 years of outdated software and ancient peripherals have left the operating system a total mess. Vista is so big and complicated that attempting to build additional code onto it is futile.

Is it back to the drawing board for Microsoft? Signs seem to indicate that, yes, Windows is headed in a whole new direction now.

The most popular notion is that Windows will go "modular," offering an operating system that you'll buy in pieces, and possibly pay for on a month-to-month or year-to-year basis.

What does "modular" mean? Look at Windows Vista itself to see a primitive version of modularity in action: Vista comes in (at least) four major flavors, each of which contains different features that the other versions lack. Want Media Center? Upgrade to Home Premium. Want hard drive encryption? You'll have to upgrade to Ultimate Edition.

Windows 7 would likely take this even further. Instead of offering four pre-packaged versions, you might start with a relatively cheap Windows Basic setup, then start adding modules as you need them. Photo management may run you an extra few bucks. You might even have to pay extra to get a media player or a web browser (though that seems unlikely).

The next question is how you might pay for this, which is a bigger question mark. Some speculate that Microsoft may move toward a subscription model, charging you by the month or the year for your computer to keep working. This would be great for Microsoft, as it could force you to upgrade -- and pay -- whenever it wanted simply by pulling the plug on old apps. It would be considerably less great for consumers, for exactly the same reason.

Still, it may very well be an improvement over what we're stuck with now. Even Gartner seems to think so; it says right in the title of its aforementioned presentation that "what comes next will improve." Let's hope so.