Windows Vista Delayed Again

Trenty writes "Ars Technica is reporting that Microsoft has delayed Windows Vista yet again. Jim Allchin told analysts that the OS would not ship in January of 2007, which is a 1-2 month delay. Oddly, even though they are citing the need for more time to tweak security, business editions will available to volume licensing customers before the close of the year."

Comments

Pre Sale

[ackthpt]

Oddly, even though they are citing the need for more time to tweak security, business editions will available to volume licensing customers before the close of the year.

Not really all that odd. I believe it's called a pre-sale. People do this on eBay all the time, selling items they don't yet have, but will send along when they get them.

In the software world, we've had a vendor offer us a new product, which we may actually like, at a 75% discount if we sign up by September. The product isn't entirely finished yet and it would likely be two years before migration, but the pricebreak is clearly meant to ensure they have some income. I have no idea what their books look like, but suspect this move is the result of a dire need of revenue, so it makes us go "hmmmm..."

Where do you suppose Microsoft would like to enter the income for these early sales? Revenue recorded early is revenue you can't record later. I rather doubt they are turning over a Special Bug-ridden Business User Version early. They'd be flayed in the Information Trade press. (Then again, it's probably happened a few times already, which could explain how little attention CIO's pay to these magazines, they just scatter them on their desks to look Connected and Managerial.)

Less and less relevant?

[RunFatBoy.net]

Is it me, or is Vista just becoming less and less relevant?

And the thing is, I use to be an MS fanboy but with the rapidly changing environment of security issues and such, who can wait _years_ before considering other alternatives?

-- Jim http://www.runfatboy.net/

Re:Less and less relevant?

[Scoria]

Is it me, or is Vista just becoming less and less relevant?

Look at it this way. Although some may not consider Vista relevant now, they will several years after it has launched. Like Windows XP and Windows 2000 before it, Vista will be preinstalled on all new computers, and vendors will slowly deprecate their support for older Microsoft operating systems.

As long as the executives at Microsoft are capable of maintaining their OEM agreements with the popular brand name manufacturers, Windows will always be relevant.

Re:Less and less relevant?

[bloggins02]

I think Microsoft is making a fundamental mistake here: they are sticking to the same release strategies and timelines they used when software was released on stacks of floppy disks ("please insert disk 37", ahhh, the memories).

Meanwhile, we have the "release early, release often" philosophy of the Free Software Movement as well as the "release often enough to keep things interesting" tactic from Apple. These two tactics make more sense in this new era of software construction, testing, and distribution.

Users have grown accustomed to more frequent releases by software groups and companies they respect. These releases also satisfy an obvious, common human desire: instant gratification. As more and more users grow used to and satisfied with these accelerated release timetables, these multi-year release schedules used by Microsoft (and Adobe, while we're at it) look more and more comical.

Recently, Gates admitted the faux pas of allowing Internet Explorer to stagnate. I believe they have similarly misstepped with Windows. By the time Vista not only comes to market, but comes to be used by the majority of PC users (and don't kid yourself, you know that will happen), it will be very difficult to catch up to the psychological success of the multiple releases of Linux and Mac OS X.

Re:Less and less relevant?

[kimvette]

re: This is something I've never really udnerstand when Linux afficianado's criticize Microsoft.

Well, patch Solitaire in Windows, you have to reboot (okay, slight exaggeration), leading to downtime ranging from minutes to hours (in the case of extremely large databases)

Patch anything but the kernel(and modules) in Linux? Just keep chugging along, perhaps restarting a single process or two, and a fairly transparent experience from the user perspective.

There is a difference.

Also note: downtime due to patches, maintenance, etc., is not counted as "downtime" as defined by Microsoft - just the rest of the world. So when you read downtime/uptime comparisons from Microsoft, ignore them. They redefine the terms.

Re:Less and less relevant?

[petermgreen]

provided you haven't changed anything that changes the linux image itself and only changed modules you should be able to load the new modules without rebooting.

Re:Less and less relevant?

[bloggins02]

I normally don't reply to people who post ad hominem's but I actually had more to say and I didn't want to reply to my own post, so you're a convenient excuse.

3. Dealing with thousands of Linux whackos like you

Nowhere did I say I was a Linux whacko. I don't use Linux (for many of the reasons you cited, actually). I use Windows XP almost everyday, and I like it. I also use Mac OS X (which I love, rather than merely like). But that's the problem: you see, Windows XP is good, not insanely great mind you, but good. Windows 95 was worth the wait compared to the mediocrity of Windows 3.1 (and don't get me started on 3.11's "networking support"). XP is pretty fast, reasonably stable (I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen XP blue screen, and those were mostly due to crappy drivers for el cheapo hardware), and its development tools are excellent.

So, whereas when Apple releases yet another yearly release, I'm excited to try it and see all the nifty little gadgets they've put in there this year, when Microsoft waits three, four, even five YEARS to release another version of Windows, I'm thinking I'd better be blown-away. This rarely happens. In fact, all of the features that would have blown me away (*cough*WinFS*cough*) are steadily removed from the shipping OS every time the release date slips.

So, there's the problem as I see it. By waiting so long to make a new release, they build up excitement while at the same time watering down the release so much that it's quite anti-climactic when the product finally DOES ship. I still like Windows, I just think they're screwing themselves here.

13. Idiots (you fall into this group, too!)

Assuming I'm a "Linux whacko" becuase I submit a post critical of Microsoft release practices? Hmmm, no comment on this one.

Re:Less and less relevant?

[aaronl]

Perhaps you just haven't been around long enough to have seen MS in action, but we've heard that before. Actually, before MS released the first version of NT. It was called "Cairo" and MS has had fifteen years to finish it, and they've failed. They borrowed things and hacked things together, but in fifteen years, they still haven't managed to do what others had done.

Copy and paste from Wikipedia:
        * DCE RPC
        * An object-oriented User Interface
        * X.500 Directory
        * X.400 Messaging
        * Content Indexing
        * Object-based file system (see WinFS)

Those are what Cairo was supposed to be, as announed in 1991. It was even demoed in 1993, but not in an even slightly usable form. They managed to accomplish the directory by taking LDAP and writing a custom schema and tools. Messaging was accomplished by their email system (Exchange), which used previously established standards. They do half-assed indexing. There has been over 10 years of security problems with their RPC implementation, and it's still not fixed. They have nothing resembling the object FS, and cancelled the attempt, as we all know.

NT3.x brought the DCE RPC, NT4 brough the UI and messaging. Win2000 brought the directory, and eventually the indexing. XP/2003 brought nothing more than revisions to those existing components, and Vista is no different. The things that *mattered* have been cut from the platform.

Do you really believe that Vista, something that realistically amounts to security fixes, a new and more annoying UI, and a few toolkits that exist elsewhere, is a bigger release than W2K? I hope not, because that's asinine. I can confidently say that AD was far more important than *ANYTHING* new in Vista. XAML/WPF is another MS copy of existing technology, and one that doesn't even really exist yet. Even if it doesn't suck, it would certainly be many years before it mattered. People like being able to use their computers without requiring internet access, and the entire concept would not allow that.

Anyway, you need to think through things more, and look at past performance. You can't trust anything that MS says until you see it yourself. Every "revolutionary" technology that was so heavily pushed by MS propoganda has been dropped eventually. The current ones are DirectX and .NET. Just in their wakes are large version incompatibilities, and lack of support. When you get into something like .NET or MFC, etc, you see that MS barely uses it, and eventually drops it for their newest shiny toy that will sell more copies of new version of all their products.

Re:Less and less relevant?

[dsci]

The problem with your comparison is that Windows is a mature product, whereas OS X is not.

That's got to be about the stupidest thing I've seen on /. in a long time, and I REALLY try to refrain from saying stuff like that.

By what standard is Windows a mature product compared to any other OS? They release updates and fixes every MONTH and there are like 15-umpty "versions" of Windows in the wild right now. The MSKB is FULL of "bug reports" and stupid workarounds for things that SHOULD have been fixed long ago.

By any rational measure, OS X is every bit as 'mature' as Windows; just ask the millions of people who use it everyday in demanding production environments (I'm not one of them).

Comparing commercial release schedules to OSS is largely nonsensical, because the latter has none of the pressures and/or responsibilities of the former.

Since when is OS X an OSS project? And even if you can somehow claim it is, Apple is a fairly large commercial enterprise with all those pressures and responsibilities you mention.

Re:Less and less relevant?

[drsmithy]

I didn't say that Vista hasn't had a lot of internal changes, just that they don't matter in that way. They don't enable new applications or technologies; they fix shortcoming in the previous implementation.

So... Just like very other update to a mature platform, then ?

I'm not as much talking about vendors as technologies. MS comes up with their own versions of things, pushes everyone to use them, and then they drop it from something shinier.

So... They're just like everyone else ?

The non-MS part of the world has been using things called "standards", and they have been doing so far longer than Windows has existed, let alone been used.

Really ? What's the standard API for a "unix" GUI application ? How about using audio devices ? Which API should I use to make sure my hardware driver compiles on Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris and OS X without modifications or special cases ?

We have POSIX as an API standard, and that's been around for a long time.

And is basically useless (not to mention largely ignored) for anything except trivial command line applications.

Heck, it's not at all uncommon to find trivial open source "unix" applications that only work on x86 Linux machines with particular versions of glibc.

Most "cross platform" unix source code doesn't compile on a wide range of platforms because of "standards", it does so because of the amount of work done by things like autoconf and make.

Jeez. One of the biggest hurdles to wider commercial adoption of Linux is the sheer volume of different APIs (many of which all do essentially the same thing), and you're here trying to say there's no such problem at all ?

MS has had no less than six APIs that I can think of, just off the top of my head.

And "unix" has dozens (if not hundreds). Your point ?

They tried to have their own networking protocols, their own email formats, APIs, and on and on.

So... Just like every other commercial vendor ?

They have all been problematic, and largely dropped for the standards that were already there. In that regard, yes, I can think of "vendors" that it doesn't apply to.

Such as ? Certainly not Apple, Novell or IBM. Maybe Sun, but the intersection of markets between Solaris and Windows is vanishingly small.

You act like Microsoft come up with something, then run away from it the first chance they get just to screw everyone over. Yet things like Win32, MFC and DirectX have been around for over a decade, and will *still* be in legacy support 5 years down the track, if not longer. Heck, Vista will still support Win16 on 32-bit x86, an API that's around twenty years old.

Dupe?

[Black Parrot]

Wouldn't it be "news" if you posted a story when a Windows release wasn't delayed?

Re:Gee, go figure

[Ucklak]

Windows ME

Re:Gee, go figure

[ackthpt]

Like anyone didn't expect this. Are they too busy with Organimi or whatever? Xbox 360? Their URGE music store?

Well, these are typically different divisions and Microsoft is rather a large corporation.

Has Microsoft EVER released anything that was ON TIME?

Probably, but usually to everyone's mutual regret. I think the right time is when it's ready and not a moment sooner.

Did you hear about the Wembley Stadium roof collapse yesterday? Would they rather have that thing completed on time, filled with 100,000 people and then have the roof drop 1 metre?

Massive failure on Microsoft's part is taking a toll and they really have a lot at stake this time, after promising XP would be bug free and the best security ever, just before 1.04e7 bugs and security holes were revealed and exploited. Make Wembley look like a tempest in a teapot.

Dupe

[DemingBuiltMyHotRod]

" Windows Vista Delayed Again"

-1 Dupe.

The real reason --

[Cmdr-Absurd]

They are replacing the bundled mine sweeper with Duke Nukem Forever.

Better

[CriminalNerd]

An OS with less holes is better than an OS with more holes. Let us wait patiently...

Official link

[RonnyJ]

There's an official statement here: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/mar0 6/03-21WindowsVistaDeliveryPR.mspx

Izzard

[rmsmith]

To quote (from memory, but hopefully accurate) the wonderful Eddie Izzard regarding Microsoft's release schedules: "It'll be out tomorrow! Next week! Next month! When we're fuckin' ready, alright?!"

When is XP not good enough?

[poopie]

The only way I can see Microsoft being able to have Vista succeed faster than just by licenses bundled with new hardware is to cut off patches and support and upgrades from Windows XP.

After working *so* hard to get corporations to upgrade from Windows 95,98, and Windows NT to Windows XP... It's going to be a hard sell to explain that Windows XP is no longer good enough and that corporations need to not only upgrade their OS, but also need to upgrade their *HARDWARE* to take advantage of Windows Vista.

Regardless of how you define "thin client", a desktop running Windows XP fits that bill quite nicely. IE6 is good, Firefox is available, everything is going browser based. Even *if* Microsoft tried to withhold a future version of Internet Explorer from Windows XP users, there will be Firefox and Opera. If microsoft tries to require non-portable components on the client side of their web components, they're going to cut off mobile users, OSX users, Linux, etc.

How exactly can Microsoft make Vista a compelling upgrade other than releasing new game titles that will not run on Windows XP?

Certainly, they cannot cut off security updates on Windows XP at least for the next decade or so.

Re:When is XP not good enough?

[Pharmboy]

A desktop running XP is NOT a thin client.

MS has made it clear they will support older operating systems with security patches for at least 5 years after they discontinue selling it.

Businesses buy new computers on average every 4-5 years, if for no reason other than it is cheaper than maintaining the old hardware. Cost to maintain vs. new is one reason. Depreciation rules are another.

They will cut off XP update in 6 to 8 years. They will cut off all non-critical updates (bug fixes) in 2 to 4. All of this is published on their site, their policies for End of Life products.

My house is 50% Linux, 50% MS right now. We will not be making the transistion to Vista. By the time games won't run on XP anymore (5-6 years from now) I expect they will on Linux, or I simply won't buy the ones than don't.

So I really don't care when Vista comes out.

Odd coincidence

[tootlemonde]

The Wall Street Journal reported that before the stock market opened today

Microsoft broke the bullish news that it planned to significantly boost the distribution of its Xbox 360 videogame consoles. Xbox and Vista are handled by two different divisions of Microsoft, but did the Redmond brain trust really not know about the Vista news until this afternoon? Microsoft representatives weren't immediately available for comment.

Microsoft shares were down as much as 3% in after-hours trading.

You'd think that Microsoft's investor relations department would try to co-ordinate two announcements that might affect the stock price. If they deliberately staggered the announcements to reduce the effect of the second one, Microsoft might be in violation of securities regulations.

In any case, investors should view Microsoft's future positive announcements with suspicion since they could simply be a precursor to a negative one.

Re:It's the DRM

[paugq]

No DRM in the business edition? Then everybody and his brother will install Windows Vista Corporate with a Volume License Key which requires no activation, just like people did with Windows XP.

Comparisons are looking worse...

[Coryoth]

I remember when MacOS X 10.4 got released there were plenty of comments from MS people that Vista had similar but "better" things and would be out shortly. Now Vista has been pushed back to the point where we can expect to see MacOS X 10.5 first (scheduled for the end of this year apparently), so really all those comparisons pitting Vista against Tiger were vastly premature - the comparison is Vista with Leopard - and we don't know what that will come with yet.

In the meantime the Linux side of things continues to move along. At the present rate I would expect it reasonable to find Xgl or AIGLX along with Beagle and similar as standard in distributions released around the end of this year, along with a more Cairo-ised GTK and a steadily improving GNOME. I don't know anticipated release dates for KDE 4.0, but I don't believe it's too far away (compared the the Vista release), and certainly promises to be impressive. A lot of Vista's claims to superiority are going to be already present in Linux distros before Vista gets released.

Certainly this has to be a worrying trend for MS. The Linux desktop used to be well behind and playing catch-up. While it could still use some polish in some areas, as far as new features are concerned Linux has pulled up to level pegging - that implies that the Linux Desktop is improving much faster, and Linux pulling ahead is simply a matter of time. In the meantime Apple has been managing a much faster release cycle and doesn't seem to be having any problems staying ahead of MS.

Jedidiah.

Re:Comparisons are looking worse...

[ZachPruckowski]

Leopard will come out "right around the time Vista does". We may see a preview of it at WWDC in August, but it may well not launch until anytime between November and January. But you're right. There are a lot of MS competitors who are upgrading in 2006. Firefox 2.0 will be out long before IE7 at this rate, and KDE, and Ubuntu will also get bumps. Exicting year in computing, for everyone but Windows fans.

Re:Comparisons are looking worse...

[drinkypoo]

In the meantime Apple has been managing a much faster release cycle and doesn't seem to be having any problems staying ahead of MS.

Pretty much every player worth noticing has been ahead of MS all along. I mean hell, GEOS did everything Windows 3.1 did and more, including scalable fonts before anyone even came up with a way to do that on windows period, and yet GEOS got clobbered - because they couldn't sell it. The problem with keeping ahead of Microsoft has never been one of technology, but mindshare, and thus market share.

Re:Comparisons are looking worse...

[dbIII]

The Linux desktop used to be well behind and playing catch-up

When I ran enlightenment via X on a win2k box about five years ago everyone who saw it was struck with the differences and speed - even without shaped window support and the window manager being run on a different and lower spec machine over the network. The MS Windows desktop environment has the twin advantages of being widespread and of being taught to kids in schools - but in many ways it is inferior to even CDE from many years back (KDE was inspired by CDE). Compare both to apples and they both look inferior.

Not shipping in January 2007?

[Bourbonium]

I think what he meant to say was "OS would not ship *until* January of 2007". At least, that was the impression I got from other news reports hitting the internet this afternoon on this topic.

API compatibility

[mr_tenor]

Hmmm...

http://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-devel/2006-Ma rch/045571.html

"So there we have it - this appears to be the first release in which they simply started dropping APIs."

"And, therefore, the first time for which we can categorically state that Wine will be more compatible with Windows applications than Windows itself."

"Not to mention that they're handing a near-fatal blow to OpenGL support, too."

etc.

Re:It's the DRM

[cyberformer]

If they install the business edition, they won't be able to play high-definition video in MS's proprietary DRM format.

Unlike with XP, the home version isn't just the business version with some newtorking functions taken out. It has some extra (DRM-crippled) multimedia stuff that businesses don't get.

Release the insecure version first?

[LuminaireX]

Oddly, even though they are citing the need for more time to tweak security, business editions will available to volume licensing customers before the close of the year.

I know! Let's sell the less secure version first to businesses who actually profit from their computers! What an great idea!

*Microsoft T-shirts and Xbox games to all*

Re:Gee, go figure

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Has Microsoft EVER released anything that was ON TIME?

Yes, all the time.
They are called "press releases."

Re:There's nothing odd about this....

[MBCook]

I agreed with most of your post until you got to Christmas.

Wouldn't MS want to get Vista out in time for Christmas? There are two big PC shopping times... back to school (August) and Christmas (December). They'll never get it out by August, and never said they would. But getting it out in November would be just in time to make a big blitz about "Buy a new computer with Windows Vista to put under your tree this year." The OEMs would love this, and MS could get massive sales.

Frankly, by November I don't think you should buy a new computer until Vista comes out and is pre-installed (Wintel only, if you are buying for Linux or a Mac, this doesn't apply).

If anything, I think this would HURT MS and the OEMs.

Re:Gee, go figure

[dotgain]

s/3//g;
#Please be kind, o lameness filter.

And the winner is...

[Bullfish]

Who had March 21rst on the "Vista is delayed" announcement pool? New pool for the next announced delay date starts soon!

Re:It's the DRM

[AlterTick]

If they install the business edition, they won't be able to play high-definition video in MS's proprietary DRM format. Unlike with XP, the home version isn't just the business version with some newtorking functions taken out. It has some extra (DRM-crippled) multimedia stuff that businesses don't get.

Err...so what version do people in the high-definition video business buy?

Re:It's the DRM

[HiredMan]

Err...so what version do people in the high-definition video business buy?

Macs, duh.

=tkk

Top 10 Reasons Vista was delayed:

[ZOverLord]

Top 10 Reasons Vista was delayed:

10 - Waiting for Roswell Alien Technology .dll

9 - Will work better when Bird Flu is World Wide

8 - Oprah has not done the book review yet

7 - Apple Dual Boot XP still needs work

6 - Courtney Love needs one more rehab

5 - Still Can't remove Sony Root-kit

4 - Bush is still president

3 - http://onlytherightanswers.com/ has NOT given thumbs up yet

2 - Silva Brown said WAIT!

1 - Moore's Law, It's too slow right now