Ballmer: Vista on track for January shipment

Operating system will ship as scheduled, says CEO, despite complexity of system and doubts by analysts.

The story "Ballmer: Vista on track for January shipment" published May 25, 2006 at 5:01 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

Content from Reuters expires after 30 days.

[firstlast]

Strange

I read they can't make it stable for January release everyday. I guess they need to be finished quite some time before shipping. Let's wait atleast for 2nd service pack to start adopting it :)
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[Llib Setag]

MS DoubleSpeak & Vaporware

MS has been talking about creating a "totally new from the ground up revolutionary &#38; innovative OS" at MS Developers Conferences/Seminars in Seattle since Windows 2000 was released.

MSWindowsXP was SUPPOSED to be that OS.

Then, more delays &#38; vaporware promises...

Then, "Oh no, wait &#38; see, we've got a Longhorn a commin'round the bend partners!" speech after speech after speech...

Then, more delays &#38; vaporware promises..
Longhorn was SUPPOSED to be that OS.

Then, "Oh, wait, were not going to be able &#38; deliver Longhorn, so let's wittle it down &#38; remove all the really good stuff &#38; call it Vista!"

Then, more delays &#38; vaporware promises...

Then recently "Well we want to make Vista work right out of the box, so it's a no-go for the Holidays as we promised, but hang on it's really cool &#38; upgrade to your new Vista Premium Ready PC today, while they last!"

Then Gartner Tech Analysist reported more delays &#38; vaporware promises... Not gonna happen in January for PUBLIC READY OS that just works right out of the box.

Now at WINHec Seattle, Ballmer's Fruedian slip about "it may be possible that after Beta testing responses &#38; more tweakage that Vista Public Version could possibly not meet our high expectations within our delected timeframe..."

Finally, after a 5 YEAR TIME PERIOD VISTA BETA2 = MAC OSX 10.0 (2001)Presentation at WINHec Seattle 2006 was delivered with a straight face. WOW!

Clue to Citizen Gates &#38; Big Brother Ballmer:

Send the world a memo when you have your act together.

AstaLaVista in Seattle

[Andrew J Glina]

Apple Truths

Apple made all the same claims for years, and then gave up and borrowed half their OS from BSD. At least Microsoft didn't give up.

Besides, you are wrong. Where did Microsoft claim to be making a "totally new from the ground up" OS? They already did that with NT and it worked. Writing a completly new OS for the consumer market would be a nightmare. Just ask Apple.

[huddie klein]

Ironic

Ain't it funny that the main reason I switched to a mac last october was all this talk about vista? I was afraid I'd have to update my pc again with some bloated os that would slow the thing down to a crawl. Seems I worried for nothing, vista won't be here for years to come, and when it's finally there it will be just WinXP with a new look.

Big deal!

[ppgreat]

Grokking

Now if a few million CTO's would take the same smart approach in
running their businesses, we wouldn't be having these discussions
about how collecting billions of dollars from average IT folks and
hapless consumers results in better development, "innovation", and
a secure OS. I don't know which is more disgraceful: the products
that MS produces or the people that insist on buying them.

[qwerty75]

More delays?

If Vista shipped today it would still be years behind OSX and Linux. It would still be behind even if it shipped with everything promised years ago, but dropped due to incompetance. Why people worship this inept company(or any company for that matter) is beyond me.

What is there in Vista worth paying for? So you can waste 15 gigs of your hard drive? To slow down your graphics card for substandard graphics? To put even more security flaws on your computer? Remember, Vista is not new from the ground up, it is built on buggy, unsecure, unreliable code.

It is looking like this is finally the release that takes down MS to the level it should have been since day 1: the basement. It can't ever happen to a more deserving company. They have worked hard to earn the scorn and laughter they are getting.

[Philips]

WinNT

&gt; They already did that with NT and it worked.

Seems you do not know whole story behind WinNT and it's development team. Otherwise you wouldn't make such claims. It took M$ nearly 20 years to build new OS inhouse - and it was Windows 2000.

The problem here isn't technological burt rather managerial. M$ can deliver innovative stuff - it's just this innovative thing doesn't fit high profile business plan. And they need the high profile business plan to maintain billion worth company running.

&gt; Ask Apple.

Apple with Mac OS X in fact did it right. The Mac OS X was evolving under pressure of user requests. Some might argue that M$ does the same with Windows beta testing. But the difference is subtle. Apple concentrated on making new age OS for new age applications. M$ is all about backward compatibility - old applications must work, or people wouldn't buy the OS.

Apple went thru all the pains making its new OS public before first true release - Mac OS X 10.3 - thus allowing everyone to participate somehow.

M$ now promises that snowball called "Vista" would hit our heads next January. Nor people have any easy way to try the OS nor user's feedback would influence the Vista in anyway - it's already (1) too late and (2) M$ now works over deadline.

What would work better in your opinion: something allowed to evolve with users trying to put in any good use (like Mac OS X) or something pushed out because of deadline (M$ Vista)?