“Microsoft Corp. said on Tuesday it plans to delay the consumer launch of its much-anticipated Windows Vista operating system to January 2007 from its earlier target of the second half of 2006, sending its shares down nearly 3 percent,” Reuters reports. “Microsoft plans to launch a product for corporate customers in November and then roll out Windows Vista for consumers after the holiday shopping season, Jim Allchin, co-president of the company’s Platforms & Services Division, said on a conference call.”
“Microsoft said Vista is delayed because it wants 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,” Reuters reports.
Full article here.
“‘It’s not the optimal situation, to be launching the next-generation version of Windows right after the big holiday sales season,’ said analyst Joe Wilcox with Jupiter Research,” Alison Linn reports for The Associated Press. “A spokesman for Dell Inc. declined to comment on how the delay might affect sales. In a statement released by Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard Co. said it supported Microsoft’s decision to make quality a priority in scheduling the operating system’s release. Microsoft will release some versions of the new operating system for big businesses in November as planned, but the consumer version will be postponed until January, said Jim Allchin, co-president of the Microsoft division that includes Windows.”
Linn reports, “Wilcox said releasing the system in November to businesses would likely help Microsoft — since its business sales are highly profitable — while the delay in the consumer release would be most harmful to its partners. ‘You can play semantics and say that the operating system is shipping in 2006, but if consumers can’t buy it until 2007, PC manufacturers don’t have it to sell to them,’ Wilcox said. ‘This blow falls on the partners.’ …Analyst Matt Rosoff with independent research firm Directions on Microsoft said he suspects computer makers are likely displeased with the situation, but with Microsoft’s stranglehold on the operating system market they have little control over it. ‘Certainly PC makers aren’t going to be happy about it, but I don’t know exactly what they’re going to do. They’ll wait,’ he said. ‘There’s not a whole lot of choice at this point.'”
Full article here.
“Considering the amount of resources being thrown at the Vista project, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer now face unyielding embarrassment. How could things go so wrong this late in the process? For years, Microsoft fought to shed a reputation for being perennially late shipping big projects like Windows and Windows NT. Tuesday’s announcement only makes those questions front and center again,” Charles Cooper writes for CNET News. “Microsoft is downplaying suggestions that today’s news suggests anything fundamentally wrong with the company’s internal processes. Still, you have to ask whether the company has grown so large that its ability to undertake a project this complex is inevitably going to be hampered by its own bureaucratic sloth.”
“Recall that last year Microsoft dropped several important features in order to not slow down the shipment plans. Microsoft even removed WinFS, a key piece of Longhorn, so that PC makers could plan around a holiday release… [now] Vista will miss the entire ’06 holiday shopping season… Time was when Microsoft could get away with a product slip, shrug its shoulders and promise a ‘new and improved’ version sometime soon… [but] 2006 is not 1996, and Microsoft’s customers have other alternatives,” Cooper writes.
Full article here.
“Now that Windows Vista has been delayed, it’s time to ask a once-unthinkable question: Can the Macintosh finally take back business from Microsoft? [Today’s news] may hold at least a glimmer of hope for those Mac faithful who have dared dream of a day when Apple could again reign supreme in the world of personal computing. And they are not shy to point out that Apple has released many new features and upgrades in the years that Microsoft has worked on an operating system that has yet to see the light of day. If nothing else, momentum certainly seems to be on Apple’s side,” Mike Yamamoto blogs for CNET.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Microsoft still can’t get Windows XP SP3, er, Vista, out the door? And, what haven’t they cut out of the list of promised “innovations?” There’s nothing left on the list that they can junk in order to ship the thing. This company has gone from joke to sad even faster than we thought possible.
Come one, come all! Witness the decline of a never great OS maker! How badly do you have to go today?! “Windows ME 2: The Sequel” – coming to a dull box near you, January 2007 (maybe). Soundtrack by Paul Simon.
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would’nt now just be the perfect time for Apple to drop the bombshell?
that OSX Leopard is ready, and runs on all PC boxes!
The shock and amazement leve is off the meter. I thought for certain they wouldn hit their 23rd extended deadline on the nose.
Is it just me or does it seem odd for MS to essentially say to business customers:
“Hey, we are holding back Vista for consumers because we want to get all the security bugs and other vital infrastructure elements in place… but you guys can have it!”
This is going to push AAPL back on course.
They’ve already gone up a bit in extended trading.
I would like to see a complete diary of (missed) events for Longhorn/Vista from the first announced date of availability through the various delays and downsizings.
Can you oblige me MDN, or anyone else.
John
I think the real reason for the delay, is because MS won’t have enough time to steal and copy the innovations that Apple will announce for Mac OS X 10.5 at the WWDC in August. A November introductipn for Vista won’t give MS enough time to copy.
You MacHeads just don’t get it, do you?
Bill has always been a genius, and this “slow-down” simply proves it: Only know-nothings like you art-and-literature types would find it a ‘failure’ to get Vista out when he promised it. Think! When do Americans spend the most money/buy the most new computers? Christmas! If Bill released the new operating system before Christmas, he knows that millions of nerdish/ill-dressed/unloved Americans would buy new computers so they could test out their god-emperor’s latest gift to their impish world. He would get richer! He doesn’t want that right now, you left wing loonies! By putting off release until after Christmas, Gates knows that very few tech-dorks will have enough money left to buy his new operating system, and, therefore, he will gain very little money.
Why is that good? This is what Bill understands about human psychology that you kids-who-got-good-grades don’t: if you sell something as AWFUL AS VISTA WILL BE to millions of the Windows’ hosers/losers RIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS, their lumpenproletariat masses would finally storm his castle! Vista released before Christmas would cause his death! Bill isn’t that stupid! He knows if you’re selling diseased rats, you can’t sell them all at once- you need to let them slowly crawl into the system . . .
If Microsoft are this poor at getting their priority products out, I wouldn’t hold my breath for a Universal Binary of Office:Mac. Not even if I were an humpback whale.
Wasn’t it about 5 years ago that MS was promoting subscriptions (less expensive) to Windows over outright purchases (more expensive). As I remember, Windows would stop if you didn’t keep subscribing, but you’d get all new versions of Windows. The cost-benefit was met over 3 years.
Wouldn’t you feel ripped off if you had a subscription and no new Windows versions came out for 6 years! It would have given MS even LESS incentive to bring out new versions.
Does anyone have a Windows subscription they’re willing to admit to?
I too would like to see what vista was supposed to contain and when it was supposed to ship during the past couple of years. Usually if you skip features you can push the product out the door sooner, guess MS proves that redmond is a part of the twilightzone.
I don’t think the universal binary of mac office is that much of a problem since office runs plenty fast in Rosetta. The bigger problem is stuff like Photoshop but Apple seems to have shoved a rocket up Adobe’s arse, so maybe that problem is going to be fixed sooner rather than later.
Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, Windows Vista…… people claim they’ve seen ’em but there is no firm evidence to prove they exist.
The Microsoft faithful obediently bend over and receive the sacrament of another anal insertion by the High Priest of Promises, Bill Gates, while chanting, “Thank you, sir. May I have another?”
Vista, the digital tripe from the little steer that only existed in carefully crafted press releases, will be served cold to the servile only in the indeterminate future. Those who anticipated the heavy weight match of the century will have to wait, again.
Delays, denials, disorder, disorientation, and disingenuousness. Longhorn, the best OS there never was.
I really like the idea of a holiday season campaign for OSX on Wintels just as VISTA is delayed -on schedule- until summer 2007:
“Mac OSX comes to the rescue of your Windows PC”.
Time to teach the world that Windows is just too complex and just too fcuked-up….
So how long until M$ announces it’s delaying the “corporate” version of Vista as well?
If they’re giving me more time to think about buying Vista , as someone said in another forum), then no thanks, i won’t change my mind.
By the way, as someone said in another forum, the new meaning for the acronym VISTA is:
Very
Inaccurate
Shipping
Time
Approximation
This means that Macs will never run Windows Vista.
Good news for the fans.
Someone asked for a timeline.
and th eever amusing MDN mw: “certain” (pretty certain this mf isn’t shipping in Jan)
From today’s WSJ….
Vista’s Setbacks
March 22, 2006 12:08 a.m.
Microsoft has regularly missed delivery dates for its operating-system software. Windows Vista, long touted as the most significant product upgrade since Windows 95 a decade ago, has been marked by major course corrections. Microsoft announced Tuesday that Windows Vista won’t be available to consumers until January 2007. Here’s a look at some of the delays and snags in Vista’s development.
December 31, 2002 — Some in the technology industry wonder if “Longhorn,” the code name for the next version of Microsoft’s Windows software product, will fall flat or possibly even die before it ever ships. Industry observers note Longhorn is behind schedule, with Microsoft executives saying the software probably won’t be ready until late 2004 or early 2005. One major problem: Longhorn is expected to share key attributes with another operating system Microsoft tried, unsuccessfully, to launch nearly 10 years ago. More.
October 2003 — Microsoft announces “WinFS,” a plan to make it easier in its next version of Windows for users to store and find information on their PCs.
March 29, 2004 — Microsoft chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates says the company will release the “alpha” version of Windows Longhorn software to partners and developers later in 2004. More.
Aug. 30, 2004 — Microsoft says it will ship Longhorn in the second half of 2006 — at least a year late — and that the WinFS advance won’t be part of the system. The company says it will remove the new data-storage technology to speed the delivery time of the operating system. More.
April 25, 2005 — At a Microsoft-sponsored conference in Seattle, Mr. Gates demonstrates the latest version of Longhorn, drawing attention to the “graphical user interface” — the icons, windows and other visual elements that help users navigate and organize information on a computer’s screen. It’s a bid to get people to literally see why they should move to the next version of Windows. The interface enhancements are based on an underlying technology called Avalon. More.
July 24, 2005 — Microsoft unveils “Windows Vista” name, highlighting a broader effort by Microsoft to connect its products more emotionally with computer users. To this point, Microsoft’s brand names have mostly conveyed chronological order, such as Windows 2000, or some sort of technical information, such as its Media Center version of Windows. More.
July 27, 2005 — Microsoft ships the “beta” of Windows Vista to 500,000 customers for testing.
August 2005 — Microsoft ships a test version of WinFS earlier than expected, and says the final version might be an add-on to Windows rather than an integral part.
September 2005 — Microsoft says that 30 software makers have said they will create new software applications for Windows Vista. Microsoft announces a $100 million program to market programs based on Windows Vista. More.
Feb. 10, 2006 — The Justice Department says it has received complaints about the coming Windows Vista operating system. More.
March 21, 2006 — Microsoft says it is delaying its long-awaited Windows Vista operating system, a decision that could cause headaches throughout the $200 billion personal-computer industry. The software firm delays consumer shipments of Vista until January 2007. More.
Please post a timeline showing all delays and features being dropped from Longhorn/Vista so I can send it to all my PC friends!
I think Cringely’s take is right. Release Leopard 10.5, early, and give away 10.4 for free. That would make people think.
To quote Billy’s own Steve “Uncle Fester” Ballmer:
“I, LOVE, THIS, COMPANY!!!! EEAHHHHHAHHAHAH!”
Nothin’ better than watching Micrapsoft shoot itself in the foot….repeatedly.
I’m glad all the Winduhs wanks are happy with XP because they might have to use it for a LONG time.
And going back re-write an old posted classic tune of many MDN’s ago:
“In the year 2525, IF Vista has arrived,
If XP has survived…they may find…
In the year 9510 if Vista’s comin’
It oughta make it by then.
It’s taken everything developers can give
But still it ain’t loadin, oh-o-no”
———————
Basic rule of business No.1:
DON’T announce a product shipment date until you ACTUALLY have product to ship.
If you do – expect your customers to look at alternatives to your business for their demands and needs…
———————
This rule is in EVERY business basics book you can find.
It makes you realise how off track Microsoft is, and what a load of donkeys the managment teama re that are running the business.
No one with any basic business management training is obviously working for them – that’s for sure.
Thanks for the timeline. Does anyone have a list of features that have been removed and an explanation of what they were?
WinFS
EFI (stuck with BIOS)
There’s got to be more.
This is no suprise to me. Seven different versions of an upgrade to XP takes a long,long,long,long,long,long,long,long,long,time.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”tongue wink” style=”border:0;” />
I have wondered why Apple put the WWDC in August instead of earlier like in the past. Wouldn’t it be awesome if Steve showed off Leopard and then suddenly turned and said….Oh, one more thing…Leopard is shipping today!
That would drive the stake in even further and create the hype they need to clear the Vista hype when it does get released next century.