Don't expect Windows Vista until Q2, 2007

[Keyboard Cowboy]

http://www.crn.com.au/story.aspx?CII...edate=20060503

Gartner: Don't expect Vista until Q2, 2007

Research firm Gartner on Tuesday said it doesn't expect Vista, the next major upgrade of Microsoft's Windows operating system, to be generally available until the second quarter of next year.

The projection is several months later than the software maker's plans to have all versions of Vista available in January.

But in analysing the development timeline for other versions of Windows, Gartner believes Vista won't be widely available until nine to 12 months after the Beta 2 version, which the analyst firm expects in late May or early June.

"Microsoft's track record is clear," Gartner said in a research note. "It consistently misses target dates for major operating system releases. We don't expect broad availability of Windows Vista until at least 2Q '07."




There are several reasons behind Gartner's projections. First of all, the firm believes compatibility with applications running on older versions of Windows will be a problem because of a prominent security feature in Vista called User Access Control. UAC gives companies more control over PCs in the workplace.

Also, since Microsoft acknowledged in March it would miss the holiday shopping season, the urgency to get Vista on PCs has been greatly reduced.

Gartner, however, believes Microsoft will be under pressure to get the OS out before the end of its fiscal year in June.

"Slipping into 3Q '07 is possible, but we will have a better idea once Beta 2 ships and we can assess the quality," Gartner said.

As it stands, Microsoft plans to release Vista to manufacturing in October or November, so it can be available to enterprises through volume licenses this year. It expects to have the OS available to computer manufacturers in time to ship in January.

Gartner, however, warns that "one should never overestimate how much Microsoft will underestimate the complexity and time needed to deliver a major new client OS."

Businesses are advised not to tie their future too closely to Microsoft's expected release dates.

Instead, they should plan on managing a diverse PC environment, introducing new PCs with new OSes as soon as possible, while avoiding upgrades of older machines.

Companies standardised on Windows 2000 will need to work quicker in making the transition to Vista, once its available, and should begin testing application compatibility with the Beta 2 release, Gartner said. Companies using Windows XP have more time in making the switch.

This does not surpise me as I have a Big Wig at MS tell me that they are releasing another File Allocation System about 6 months after the Q4 2006 release.

[Keyboard Cowboy]

http://www.crn.com.au/story.aspx?CII...edate=20060526

Microsoft partners brace for Vista fallout

Microsoft partners are bracing for the market disruption that will precede and follow the release of the software giant's long awaited Vista operating system.

Hardware partners applauded Microsoft chairman Bill Gates' formal release of Vista Beta 2 at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) last week.

But as the code moves from lab to broad beta testing over the next few weeks, partners predict that an avalanche of device drivers and application incompatibilities will crop up along with end users resistance to the new interface.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said last week at another event that Vista could slip by a month or so but will be delivered in early 2007.

Some say hardware and software partners need the extra time to gear up. Officially Microsoft is sticking to a release date of November for volume licensed customers and January 2007 to the channel broadly.

This is as big a change as when we went from Windows 9.X to NT, said Edward N. Dekker, a consultant and principal at Eclectic Engineering in the US.

The changes made in Vista, even small changes in networking and power management,will require rewrites of every driver.

Independent hardware vendors, for example, will have to modify their drivers while independent software vendors and custom application developers must test and make changes to their applications to run on Vista.

Even Office 2007, which also moved into beta 2 testing last week, has run into snags with Vista, sources said.

Microsoft's new device driver model has improved driver quality but there are changes that will hinder developers, Dekker said.

"For example, the integration of driver verification in the base OS means developers won't have as many liberties as in the past, such as editing boot.ini files easily."

Additionally, software vendors are required for the first time to develop and certify 64-bit drivers for their applications. All of these factors could slow availability of peripherals and applications.

Dramatic changes to the user interface and installation process have enormous value but will disrupt end users, partners also say.

Vista changes a lot of behavior and requires retraining, said Joseph Newcomer, president of FlounderCraft, a software design and consulting firm.

"The users will be a bit traumatised. The GUI, menus, toolbars will all be different."

Vista is Microsoft's first major Windows upgrade in five years and is currently being tested at 500 corporate customers on 8000 desktops.

I find the idea of releasing Vista during the start of the new year a really dumb idea as most of the distribution channels are not fully up and running until Chinese New Year.
And normally this period, we see a lot of vendors releasing there new hardware products. This is going to be enough work as his with out having to include the fact that the vendors are going to need to write drivers for a totally new OS.

I do see this affecting computer sales during the christmas season as a lot of the typical end user consumers will most likely wait the extra month just so they don't have to update there copy of Windows.

If Microsoft is smart, they should wait until at least Second Quarter (Late March) to release there new OS.

[weemanpow3]

its gonna be tought paying for Vista $400.00

[Lord AnthraX]

I'm not wasting 400 dollars on that garbage....

[Keyboard Cowboy]

Originally posted by Harper
I do see this affecting computer sales during the christmas season as a lot of the typical end user consumers will most likely wait the extra month just so they don't have to update there copy of Windows.

Microsoft plans free Vista upgrades

This is good news for those people that are selling and purchasing a new computer over the up coming christmas period.