[Dana]

The fact that MS just decided to delay the consumer version of Windows Vista until January "reportedly" had some retailers wrinkling their noses but in typical MS fashion, they've put in a caveat that: a low cost upgrade will be available for "Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 for anyone who buys a new computer between Oct. 26 to March 15."

I doubt there was much in the way of nose wrinkling though...I know that most people aren't that anxious for a first generation of a new o/s from them anyway. Most like to wait until SR2 or later to upgrade so I highly doubt that this will scare anyone into waiting until after the new release to buy a computer for someone for Christmas....seems to me they just used that for a reason for more publicity...;)

[shavei7]

seems to me they just used that for a reason for more publicity

LOL. couldn't agree more with you on this one. new computers are now Vista capable and i was thinking of getting a new notebook but like you said, i'd wait and see first about the public's "take" on this hyped new MS OS

[robert]

Product delays are not that uncommon. It's a balancing act, do you release on time with countless bugs or not. The challenge is that when you release it that way, you get tons of beta testers showing up the same bugs over and over, however, can't wait forever.

[shavei7]

but MS has hundreds - thousands of testers working on THIS product alone. half (or maybe 2/3) of Redmond is practically MS. so you can't really say for sure that it was because of a bug why it was delayed. knowing MS marketing strategy, the delay could very well be just another Page Ranking thing. afterall, it's not been released yet but a lot of consumers are already skeptical about it.

[diddy1]

OMG! I can't tell how many times I've waited for an announced vista release only to be hit with a delay. Microsoft seems to be good at this I've been keeping up with it ever since it was called "longhorn". My guess would be that they can't delay it anymore or they'll start losing retailers, I'd say it looks like it's going to be release in 2007 around summer or even Christmas would be best.

Thank You

[StarLab]

I have a buddy in town here who is a MS developer. He's been running Vista for a month or two now and has yet to find a problem.

But I agree with the general flow of this thread. Let's let people like my buddy do all the bug splashing so that people like me can enjoy a stable product. :)

[shavei7]

stable product... there is no such thing as "bug free" product (especially once as big and complicated as an OS) because it is IMPOSSIBLE to test it and predict every possible inputs. BUT.... testers and developers try to make sure that it is usable and "stable" enough...."stable" in the software world is not equal to "bug free" :)

[babycarml]

Anyone that's ever used a Microsoft product -- for any reason, knows there will always be bugs -- however, I agree that it's not a big deal to wait for the final release. At least they will have "some" of the bugs worked out. My previous employer is still working on getting everyone upgraded to Windows XP -- let's not rush to the next platform!