Newsmaker: Is Vista's delay good for the industry?

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There's been talk of a really big marketing campaign to coincide with the launch of Vista and Office 2007 this holiday season. How has the change in Vista's mainstream consumer-launch plans affected those marketing plans?
Goldberg: One of the places we've received consistent feedback from corporate customers is that when they look at both Office 2007 and Vista, they would ideally like to deploy both the new operating system and the new Office suite together because of the benefits of only having to touch the desktop once. Specifically for corporate customers, we're going to stay pretty tightly integrated with the Office team to ensure that customers have the tools and the right guidance and overall readiness for the rollout of Vista and Office 2007 for their infrastructure.

Analysts disagree with the notion that this won't affect PC sales this holiday season, since they already had plans in place. What makes Microsoft believe that the January launch of Vista won't affect PC sales in the fourth quarter of this year?
Goldberg: First, the conversations we've had with the industry walking through the pros and cons given where we were. Being on the bubble of making it or not making it, people really wanted us to be predictable and make the more responsible choice for the industry. We've also heard that January has emerged as a very significant month from a consumer perspective, almost as a second holiday selling season given the emergence of things like gift cards--both from an OEM new PC and a retail perspective. Plus, looking at markets outside the U.S., we think there's a real opportunity in that timeframe for a great launch post the new year. So we feel good about plans there.

What does this mean in terms of Microsoft's reputation as a developer? Certainly Microsoft gets knocked for not getting products out on time more than other companies. How does Microsoft deal with that perception in the industry and with partners that count on those releases?
Goldberg: In this case, we really prioritized the feedback we got from the industry around the given the timeframe we're at, trying to give as much notice and lead time to get on a high confidence plan to deliver a quality product where customers can trust our quality. Again, we're making a responsible choice for the overall industry. We're hoping these announcements support our commitment to being a predictable partner and support those core principles that are important to us.

One of the things that Microsoft has talked about--in the future post-Vista---is trying to have quicker releases of Windows. I?m wondering if the testing cycle and the tail of the development cycle is giving Microsoft any pause over how realistic it is to crank out OS releases on a more frequent schedule?
Goldberg: Jim (Allchin) touched on this a little bit. We feel like the changes we made around engineering excellence and the new Community Technology Preview process are giving us a very good read on what we need to be doing through all phases of the development cycle. There are some unique things related to the holiday selling season specifically, where after we went through (Windows XP) Service Pack 2, which we released right at the very end of August. There was some feedback from partners around the timing of that. So there are learnings for us, but it's more about the timing, not the frequency, of releases and making sure we are fully aligning in the right ways with all aspects of the industry so we make sure we give the right amount of lead time.

The next time around, earlier in the year might be a better time for OS releases?
Goldberg: As far as frequency, we are looking at what is the right timing that works for the breadth of both OEM and retail partners and how we really make sure we are planning well with the industry so we have a window to shoot for that gives everyone plenty of time to plan.

So the frequency goals are still similar. The lessons, if any, are really around what time of year you do launches.
Goldberg: The aspirations around frequency are the same. The windows for release--when you look at the logistics of the distribution channel and how we think about the timing from when we finish bits here and then we ensure that partners have the lead time to make all of the steps they need to preload Windows on new PCs--that is the window that we need to think about. Now how we think about launches is different than how we think about release windows and lining up distribution.  

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[gggg sssss]

translation

Somebody please - toss me a clue. I certainly don't have any

[open-mind]

Message has been deleted.

[keyboard55]

Vista-- a better acronym

V irus
I nfections
S pyware
T rojans
A dware

[JoeCrow]

Ridiculous spin

Actually, it's pretty amazing spin. This guy basically denied there's any problem and implied that the OEMs as much as asked Redmond for the delay. BS. I have a friend at Dell (in marketing) who said there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth when the announcement was made... and they're the only ones who might be able to ship Vista, since they have a shorter production cycle.

Bull

is anyone out there buying this guys ********?