Posted Users & Usability, Software - Microsoft Programs, Techie News on Tuesday, August 1st, 2006.
Anyone who’s a Windows Vista beta tester probably knows it already, but Windows Vista probably isn’t going to ship “on time”.
Everyone knows why (bugs, bugs, bugs), but Robert McLaws makes some great observations in “Vista Needs More Time” and compares the buggy Vista Bets 2 with Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2. One of them was basically production-ready with Beta 2, the other still has issues with the 3D interface that seems to be the main selling point in a lot of “get users excited ads”. Whether the interface, or anything else, is working right I think Microsoft should ship the Vista RTM version to software developers, OEMs and corporate customers regardless.
Robert is right, Vista isn’t ready to launch in retail, but he justifies the possible slipped ship date with the same-old argument about “shipping a great product”. Inveterate Windows commentator Ed Bott even wants Microsoft to push Vista’s ship date back to March.
Despite the very sorry state of Beta 2, it would be a great thing to get a Vista RTM out the door with a LOT fewer features and then release a service pack, or even a feature pack, a month later. After all, whether customers are actually buying the operating system or not, Vista will probably need to be out a good 6-9 months before most IT shops really start to get on the upgrade path.
This shiny, new OS is a hardware hog and is going to force many companies, including the majority of the companies I deal with and have friends at, to either speed their upgrade cycle or wait through at least one, if not two, budget cycles. Of course, one good way to force operating system or office-suite upgrades is to give software developers plenty of time to test and patch around it - which gets IT departments testing it and pushing it out to higher-end machines sooner - which puts it on the CFOs desk - which gets a budget decision made sooner.
Then again, with MSFT sunk for 2007 already and a $30 billion stock-buyback planned - maybe Microsoft should knock the date back to next summer and save themselves some of that money.
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