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Vista Could Ship Earlier Than Expected
UltimaGuy writes "With speculation of a ship date for Windows Vista ranging in the second part of 2006, word has surprisingly surfaced that it can be expected much earlier. BusinessWeek has received a copy of the internal blog of Chris Jones, who is a top Windows executive. The blog states that the code for Windows Vista will be completed by August 31, giving Microsoft the opportunity to place Vista on PCs for the 2006 Christmas season."
SO they take the product that has had tons of problems and MOVE UP the release date? Wow. . . I hope its perfect. No that a few months will make a difference at this point. . .
Am I missing something obvious, or is "Christmas 2006" actually later than "Second half 2006."
At the very least they seem to be too close together to say it is shipping "much" earlier.
"Can't imagine why they think getting it out in time for Christmas is in any way important!"
Kids ask Mom for a computer for Christmas, Mom buys one, packaged with Vista.
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
The vendors will OEM it, and if this past Black Friday shopping frenzy is an indication, people will be lining up to get it, *because* of the hardware deals that will be wrapped around it.
With that said, all new major releases of windows since at least 95 have had brisk sales by disk at release time, that lasts a month or so (whatever) then slows down. I would imagine this will be similar.
It also depends on pricing, MS can afford to drop prices and still make a lot of profit. As the software costs approach or exceed the hardware costs, they will be forced to do this I think. people might be in the unusual situation of being in the same store staring at 200$ complete systems with OS installed, then staring at a set of disks for 200$ with the same OS. This will cause a few "hmmm, WTF??" moments.