Stan Beer
Saturday, 07 October 2006 15:11
Opinion and Analysis
With the announcement of Windows Vista Release Candidate 2 (RC2), Microsoft can finally see the light at what has been an exceptionally long development tunnel for its new operating system.
Five years is a long time between drinks and,
despite the ruminations of some analysts, notably Gartner, the
prospects are looking decidely positive that Microsoft will have its
new baby ready for commercial volume licensing release sometime in
November and wider consumer release by January 2007.
How do we know this? Well, Microsoft over the years has demonstrated a
penchant for leaking information to the media and wider market ahead of
its official announcements.
Yesterday, the blogosphere and industry channel was abuzz with the news
that new PC buyers within a couple of weeks will be issued with coupons
that will allow them to upgrade to Vista for free or a relatively cheap
fee, depending on the version of Vista.
If Microsoft is prepared to issue free upgrade coupons to new Windows
XP users in October, then we can be fairly confident that the software
company which gives nothing away for nothing is going to have the final
product ready within three months.