InformationWeek | Microsoft | Gartner: Don’t Expect Vista Until 2Q 2007 | May 2, 2006 — Microsoft slippage will worsen? This cannot be good.

Research firm Gartner Inc. on Tuesday said it doesn’t expect Vista, the next major upgrade of Microsoft Corp.’s Windows operating system, to be generally available until the second quarter of next year.

The projection is several months later than the software maker’s plans to have all versions of Vista available in January. But in analyzing the development timeline for other versions of Windows, Gartner believes Vista won’t be widely available until nine to 12 months after the Beta 2 version, which the analyst firm expects in late May or early June.



  1. Jargon says:

    Haha I laughed at the picture

  2. SN says:

    So, is there any truth to the rumor that Microsoft is going to replace Solitaire with Duke Nukem Forever?!

  3. Geoff says:

    OK, fine. XP is suiting me just fine anyway. When XP came out, I was using ME and I hated it. No such luck with Vista. If I get it, it will probably be with a new computer when I will have no choice. Maybe around ’09.

  4. Mike Caddick says:

    This is just pure speculation on Gartner’s part.

    Whenever I see a pic of Balmer I automatically think of the Sontaran bad guys from Dr Who.
    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/69/Sontaran.jpg/200px-Sontaran.jpg

  5. Jeff Smith says:

    I personally think this is good news. I’m a mac user myself, but Vista does look like an attractive OS. I can only hope that Microsoft puts the new development time to good use. I use Windows professionally and at the moment I don’t see a pressing need to upgrade. Better security always gets touted, but like ANY OS (even my beloved OS X) there are always going to be vulnerabilities.

    I’d rather have it done right then one of those mishaps that get mass released. (Windows ME comes to mind) Just my 2 cents.

  6. gquaglia says:

    Can’t get Vista out the door, but they are going to spend 1billion on MSN and Windows live.

    http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-6068383.html

    M$ should get its priorities straight.

  7. Mark T. says:

    Ha, I like the picture, too. All it needs is for someone with Photoshop to add a robe & some blue lightning bolts coming off his fingertips and he would look exactly like the Emperor from Star Wars!

  8. Greg Albright says:

    Hmmm, seems to be the consensus on Vista…

    XP users are happy with XP(and it seems 2000 users are still happy with 2000). Dont see a reason to upgrade. Dont want to upgrade. I think that is the reason for the the continuing delays, no demand. In this environment MS would be crazy to to spend the kind of money they spend on a big release. There is simply no demand…

    Having seen feature complete betas of XP, I dont see any technical problems with the product. I havent worked with it extensively though. And people willing to pay the $700 premium can get vista today…

    Also, its not as if MS needs the money, their profits increased 16% last quarter, and they have iirc about $50 billion annual sales, with about $10 billion in profits year after year…

    Sheesh, think about that, MS profits are about the same as Apples gross revenue. It is not as if MS is feeling heat from OS X or anything. If anything Apple is still in a mortal struggle for survival. Bootcamp shows that, Apple users were largly delighted to have a reason to buy XP. Apple has been doing better since the iPod though. Apple has looming problems now that it looks like Adobe is going to drop support for OSX, becaues of iLife.

    Additionaly, MS is making big gains in the server market, with Exchange and SQL server… for some reason unknown to me. To my personal chagrin, .NET has been a smashing success. XBox 360’s massive success, along with Sony’s falter on PS3 has worked out good for MS also.

    Nope, I think its a business decision to hold back Vista, not a technical one.

  9. Ignorant_Masses says:



    and 80% of the business people in America still won’t know how to use a computer…


    and Micro$uck still won’t have a training system built-in…


    So, what’s the point? Oh yah, profits and stuff…

  10. Awake says:

    I look forward to the next version of OpenOffice and Thunderbird much more than any OS upgrades. Heck, there isn’t even any new hardware (like USB previously) that can really benefit from an OS upgrade. So I really don’t care.
    Wanna get me interested… gimme more than eye candy that requires new hardware to see… how about a fully searcheable and indexed (online and offline) file system? Or a system thatis actually color managed so I can trust the color on my computer without having to have a degree in Physics?

  11. mbg says:

    I wouldn’t be surprised if it was delayed. What we’re currently seeing in the betas is a vision problem. I don’t care if a bunch of computer enthusiasts like how k007 Glass looks, the OS is not ready… and from the way it looks, I’d be surprised if there was anyone who could identify when it is finished because to me it looks like they don’t know what they want to accomplish with Vista anymore.

    It’s either that, or they know what they want to accomplish (get the new foundation onto desktops), but are having to be very creative in coming up with ways to try and sell it to people. Because, a platform upgrade isn’t very exciting and won’t make people go out and buy it… but wide adoption is necessary for the platform to matter.

    Anyway, I don’t see much of a penalty in them delaying it. They already broke the 2006 promise for retail delivery. Corporations won’t be rolling it out over Christmas, so there’s no reason to deliver it in 2006. There’s no big buying season in January or anything like that… they’ve missed the big one (Christmas), so what’s the penalty in delaying it further? Besides, it’d be worse if it was late (which it already is) AND a piece of crap (which is currently is).

    I think the delay to January may have been to soften the blow (“we ALMOST made it”), to be followed by another delay that no-one will care about. Maybe it’ll be done by June 2007 or so, and ready for integration into the back-to-school upgrade cycle.

  12. axe says:

    By this time Apple will be 2 os’s past Tiger.

  13. BOB G says:

    last time I looked every computor sold has a oem copy they are selling. the apple people maybe will take up the retail sales. MS wins either way. selling XP or vista.


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