Hasta la vista Vista until at least Q207

Stan Beer
Wednesday, 03 May 2006 07:01

Your IT - Home IT

The release of Microsoft's long awaited new operating system Windows Vista will be pushed out yet again until at least Q2 2007, according to analysts from research group Gartner. In fact even that estimate may be optimistic based on the evidence of previous releases.

A research note from the four main Vista watchers at Gartner, Stephen Kleynhans, David Mitchell Smith, Neil MacDonald, Michael A. Silver, indicates that, based on Microsoft's track record of product releases, it is very unlikely that Vista will be available before the second quarter of next year.

"Microsoft's track record is clear; it consistently misses target dates for major operating system releases. We don't expect broad availability of Windows Vista until at least 2Q07, which is nine to 12 months after Beta 2," the research note states.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Chairman Bill Gates are both known to be fuming over delays in the development of Vista and Office 2007, which has also been pushed back to 1Q 2007 to coincide with the Vista release. However, the Microsoft spin doctors are spinning the line that Gartner is wrong and he release schedule for Vista remains on track.

In fact, if the research note is correct, it is possible that Vista may not even be available until the third quarter. The analysts point out that the release of Vista is more akin to the release of Windows 2000 than Windows XP, which was basically a renovation of Windows 2000. Thus, the timing of Microsoft's release schedule, in which the company allots just five months between the beta 2 release, expected in June this year, and the final product has been questioned.

The gap between Windows XP beta 2 and final was release was just five months. However, the gap between Windows 2000 beta 2 and final release was 16 months.

The analysts believe nine to 12 months of testing will be required at least before a product stable enough for general release is ready. Since Windows 2000 was not released until 16 months after its beta 2, even that estimate may be optimistic.

Given the nature of Vista - it is Microsoft's first 64-bit operating system - it is clear that the company is racing frantically to push the product onto the market, with incredibly only one release candidate planned. The Gartner analysts say that at least two release candidates are required to accomodate issues expected to arise during broad testing among millions of users and to produce a stable version of the operating system.

The same four analysts put out a research note in March which stated that corporate cleints would not be expected to be deploying Vista until sometime in 2008.