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Windows XP Service Pack 3 Not Due Until 2007
vitaly.friedman writes "Microsoft has published the due date for Windows XP SP3 (Service Pack 3) on its Windows Lifecycle Web site. The preliminary due date (the latter half of 2007) for the next collection of fixes and patches for Microsoft's desktop operating system is as more than a year later than many company watchers were expecting."
Whitedust posted an interesting commentary on this this other day. I agree with them.
Microsoft doesn't love releasing service packs for any OS that isn't the latest one.
NT4 service packs ended about the time Win2K came out.
I'm guessing this means Vista will be pushed even further back then Microsoft have been letting on.
I don't get it.
Next one after that? Won't have any service packs at all!
I'd still be using my NT4 if it weren't for the lack of USB. It was supposed to come in SP7... but didn't because 2k was released. 2k had USB support and people moved en-masse. Can't remember what XP promissed over 2k, though. Better games? Icons for children? Can't have been improved stability, right?
Ahh, well you'll be wanting Windows Vista then.
Smells like just another crappy marketing exercise to me.... good thing my next computer is going to run Mac OS / Linux (currently dual-boot Windows 2000 / Linux on my current one for games, and yes I am a transgaming subscriber ;)).
smash.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
It's extremely common in the software industry to target a half or quarter rather than giving a firm calendar date. I wouldn't fault Microsoft for this since everyone else does it as well. The main problem Microsoft has is this window constantly slips farther and farther back.
But the Cringely clock is still ticking...
You seem to be saying what I am saying above. Microsoft programmers are not managed in such a way that they can possibly deliver a nicely finished product. Is that correct?
While Microsoft has its share of political problems and redundant layers of management (IMO), thats not actually what i meant.
When considering how to deliver Vista, we had a few options, all of which were unattractive
- keep working on it until its "done"
-- and ship multiple years later than we wanted to, by which time customers have moved in droves elsewhere, generations of new partner hardware has gone unsupported/unutilized, the entire pace of the windows software world has slowed. Legitimate customer issues we deemed to expensive to address in XP / 2k3 take that much longer to get into customer hands.
- cut a bunch of stuff completely to make it by date blah
-- despite the # of bugs that we ship with, we are very bug averse and risk averse. if we dont think something will be done enough and meet the quality bar, we dont let it in the box.
-- nobody is thrilled about doing date driven releases but everyone understands why sometimes its better to get a working product with a subset of features into the hands of customers sooner
I would characterize our situation, in general, for everything we do, as:
"we have a variety of choices, each of which will piss off somebody"
We're in the business of minimizing the valence of "sombody"
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.