Vista Starts Slide

People called me out when Microsoft claimed Vista would ship by this fall. I stated last year that Vista, the Windows XP upgrade, wouldn’t ship until 2007.

First story in the index to the right starts the PR spin on why Vista will slide into 2007. It happens every time Microsoft does a major upgrade of any of their products. We’re on track, claims MS spokespeople at first, we’re hitting our target date.

Then the first warning: we must make sure we get it working correctly. That’s what the story to the right says: we’ll ship when it’s fine and dandy. Our original ship date means less than getting a quality product in your hands. Hmm.

Next will come the “minor” feature readjustments to keep their newly revised ship dates. Then will come the “we dropped features the market isn’t ready for yet” stage. Then will come the spin to cover the fact we’re getting half of what was promised with twice the number of delays.

This sequence of events is exactly why I recommend you ignore all the Microsoft hype until Vista ships and has a security pack upgrade deployed. Then you can test Vista and use your time efficiently. OK, don’t bother to test, because you have to upgrade sooner or later. Wait until Vista ships with an upgrade before you start deploying it in your company.

I’m sure Vista will be fine and maybe even worth the upgrade cost when it ships. But don’t get excited until it actually ships (in 2007