From The Inquirer: It's not just IDC that's got its crystal balls out of its magic cupboard. Gartner today issued its end of year predictions, one of which contradicts Steve Ballmer's denial that Vista will be the last Windows.

Gartner said that next gen operating environments will be modular and be updated incrementally. "The era of monolithic deployments of software releases is nearing an end," it said. "Microsoft will be a visible player in this movement and the result will be more flexible updates to Windows and a new focus on quality overall."

Meanwhile, a rumour is going the rounds that Microsoft has started a hiring freeze, with many existing Vista developers being told to find new jobs within Voledom. A more worrying prediction from Gartner is that by the end of 2007, 75 per cent of enterprises will be infected with "undetected, financially motivated, targeted malware that evaded their traditional perimeter and host defences."

Source: The Inquirer