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March 22, 2006
Microsoft drops the Vista ball - yet again!
Microsoft has cemented its leadership in the field of product postponement with today's announcement that it would not be able to meet the much-delayed latest Vista launch deadline. You can therefore safely bet that Microsoft will not deliver the new OS until January next year. Or possibly 2008. Depending.
This time, apparently, it's the PC manufacturers' fault:
Microsoft said it delayed the new Windows to improve overall quality, particularly in security, and that PC makers didn't want the operating system introduced in the middle of holiday sales, because a new version would create instability in the market.
It's now five years since Microsoft released Windows XP, which, by the standards of an industry that's famed for the rapidity of updates, is surely worthy of a place in the Guinness Book of Records. It's also worthy of a Harvard Business School case study into how a company with that much money can be so inept in the area of development cycles. Bear in mind, it was only yesterday that Bill Gates acknowledged that it took the company just a while to release an update for Internet Explorer (which will also be further delayed, of course, with Vista). Even elephants are more efficient.
What Reuters doesn't seem to have grasped in this report, is that Microsoft pretty much staked its reputation on getting Vista out the door this year. Does Bill Gates really expect people to take seriously his assurances that it was finally preparing itself to meet new challenges, when it continues constantly to stumble at the old ones? The company's shareholders should be furious. So should its customers. Really. We think it's time to look seriously at a Mac. Or Linux. As we were saying: woefully inert.
Posted by cw at March 22, 2006 03:10 PM
Comments
Well, personally Charles, I don't give a rodent's rear end when they bring it out. Not being afflicted with the upgrade gene means that although I have a new computer with XP, I still find myself using a dual boot 98SE / Ubuntu Linux machine for most of my work. Unless there's an essential program that won't run on older or alternative operating systems, what need is there to spend money upgrading? Security perhaps? practise safe computing, in eight years my machines have remained clean although I've received all sorts of nastiness via email. This comment comes to you from Ubuntu where I spend most of my time, doesn't have all the bells and whistles of the bloated systems, but for general computer work it's the bee's knees.
Posted by: Duncan at March 23, 2006 09:04 AM
Bleeding Edge is a confirmed Ubuntu fan, as regular readers will be aware. But the bulk of the world will never shift from Windows. And Microsoft should have got Vista out the door months ago. More to the point, they should have got it out the door WITHOUT ditching the most interesting components.
Posted by: cw at March 23, 2006 09:35 AM
Here is the Microsoft Presspass note.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/mar06/03-21WindowsVistaDeliveryPR.mspx
Posted by: Stephen at March 28, 2006 01:17 PM