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Microsoft May Delay Windows Vista Again
UltimaGuy writes to mention a Reuters report, stating that Vista may be delayed again, this time by up to three months. From the article: " The research note, released to clients [by the Gartner Group] on Monday, said the new Windows Vista operating system is too complex to be able to meet Microsoft's targeted November release for volume license customers and January launch for retail consumers. A Microsoft spokeswoman said the company disagreed with the Gartner report and it was still on track to meet its launch dates."
If this is actually the case, I think Microsoft deserves what's coming to them. The only reason they still have so much market share is because of inertia, but if they can't actually ship a product (even at the already delayed date) they deserve the mass defections that hopefully will be coming. They've dropped a ton of features, they can't ship on time, even Joe six pack will at some point realize that this isn't the company that should be in control of his computer. Like it or not, people aren't going to switch to Linux or OSS because it might be better or because open source is a better sofware development model. They're going to switch because they're having a problem. Nobody's going to go out of their way to fix a problem they don't have. Luckily for us, MS is doing a great job creating those problems.
I've always pictured the color of OS zealotry as a sort of bright flamingo pinkish hue
not to worry, at this rate it WILL be perfectly timed for the holiday period...
xmas 2007.
living the dream
A lot of big company IT departments make major OS/hardware/infrastructure updates/changes during that period to minimize downtime. They benefit from most employees being on vacation/leave during the same period.
Also, lots of machines with pre-installed OSes are sold during that period, as gifts. Same goes for box upgrades.
This is gartner reporting; This is the same group that in 1999 reported that Linux/OSS would penetrate into the server market at most 1% and into the web server market at only 5% by 2004 (5 years). Sadly, Linux was already beating those numbers at that time.
Generally, Gartner ( and IDC and a few others ) are some of the worse are guessing what the future holds. In fact, I would suggest that their incompetence is so bad, that I would guess that they get at most 25% correct; which means, that most companies would be better off betting against them.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Personally I don't understand why anyone would even consider touching this before its been out for at least a few months if not a year. It's quite apparent they are trying to rush this thing out the door. I'll be highly surprised if it isn't one huge bug infested mess. I certainly wouldn't want to depend on it for anything.
I'm a bit of a Microsoft fanboy but personally I think they should just give up on Vista. It's a trainwreck of a project and I can see another Windows ME in the making. I can't see many compelling reasons to deploy this in an existing environment. It's (for the most part) just a Windows XP clone with a few new features with a pretty UI and steep hardware requirements.
Microsoft should take all the half decent features out of Vista, back port them to Windows XP and call it Windows XP Service Pack 3 or Windows XP R2 then site down and have a good long think before they try this again.
It's about time Microsoft seriously thought about re-architecting their operating system from the ground up. If we can get Windows applications running under Linux with WINE, then surely Microsoft can get Windows applications running under some new operating system thus satisfying the backwards compatibility requirements. There are far too many issues with Windows appearing that are grounded in its architecture such as reduced privileges which is difficult to make work because Windows is not truly multi-user etc. etc. etc.
Give it up, start again and do it properly.
What is this, a game console? What does Microsoft care if it slips for the Holiday season?
All sorts of juicy Software Assurance Program subscriptions expire this year. Years ago, Microsoft managed to sucker companies into paying a large lump sum for all the Windows updates over the next six years - including Vista!
If companies get nothing at all for the duration of the contract, I think you'll see a lot of lawsuits and I know you'll see a lot of dropped "assurance" subscriptions.
Microsoft is delivering vista to companies even if it has to come in a box with crayon on the disc in place of a label.
Now you also know why the consumer release is later, because this release is just to meet obligations and in no way will be ready for primetime for you or I.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
that's great. so ship it.