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Microsoft May Delay Windows Vista Again 482

Posted by Zonk from the redux-redux dept.
UltimaGuy writes to mention a Reuters report, stating that Vista may be delayed again, this time by up to three months. From the article: " The research note, released to clients [by the Gartner Group] on Monday, said the new Windows Vista operating system is too complex to be able to meet Microsoft's targeted November release for volume license customers and January launch for retail consumers. A Microsoft spokeswoman said the company disagreed with the Gartner report and it was still on track to meet its launch dates."
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Microsoft May Delay Windows Vista Again More

Microsoft May Delay Windows Vista Again

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  • Well ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by vodkamattvt ( 819309 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @05:04PM (#15249436) Homepage
    I certainly didnt see this coming!

  • Suggested new Name (Score:5, Funny)

    by Vyvyan Basterd ( 972007 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @05:04PM (#15249438)
    MS/Hurd

  • This is getting old (Score:3, Interesting)

    by utlemming ( 654269 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @05:05PM (#15249443) Homepage
    Okay, I am getting tired of these delays. If I hadn't seen a beta, I would claim that Vista is vaporware. How many times does this make that it has been delayed? Maybe the reason for the insane specs is because by the time it gets out it will run on old, outdated computers.

    • Re:This is getting old (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TheNetAvenger ( 624455 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @05:17PM (#15249550)
      Maybe the reason for the insane specs is because by the time it gets out it will run on old, outdated computers

      Insane specs? The Specs for Vista are the same as last release of OSX. Actually less when you consider Vista will run on 800mhz machines with 512mb of RAM quite well. (Yes we test it on this configuration.)

      So what are insane specs to you?
      512MB of RAM for 'optimal' performance? Ok, $40
      DirectX 9.0 Card for 'high end glass' (PS in Hardware)? Ok, GeforceFX 5200 $50

      Also as a side note, if you are running Vista on legacy hardware. Like a PII 400Mhz with 128mb of RAM, there are several high end monitoring services that turn off, and can be turned off to run at the same performance as WinXP, which is still faster than Win9X and even Win2k on the same hardware.

      Trying to truly find your point here, what do you consider 'insane' specs? Am I missing something?

      • Re:This is getting old (Score:3, Informative)

        by bizard ( 691544 )
        I don't know what you think the Mac OS X specs are, but my wife is running Tiger (OS X 10.4.x) on a 5 year old 400MHz G4 laptop quite happily. 'Will run on 800MHz' sounds a bit stiff. Although it is relegated to a music server, I also have a 400MHz G3 laptop happily running Tiger with 512MB RAM.

        • Re:This is getting old (Score:5, Informative)

          by TheNetAvenger ( 624455 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @06:08PM (#15249903)
          don't know what you think the Mac OS X specs are, but my wife is running Tiger (OS X 10.4.x) on a 5 year old 400MHz G4 laptop quite happily. 'Will run on 800MHz' sounds a bit stiff. Although it is relegated to a music server, I also have a 400MHz G3 laptop happily running Tiger with 512MB RAM.


          What happened to the argument that G4mhz didn't equal Intel mhz?

          We are running Vista on 400mhz systems with 128mb of RAM. (Systems slower than a G4 400mhz. PERIOD.

          As for RAM, the more the better no matter what OS. Vista will run on lower than the 512mb of RAM MS recommends. Apple recommends 256mb for the current version of OSX, but the next version Apple has stated will also recommend 512mb of RAM. Even in your post you note you are running OSX on a G3, but state you are using 512mb of RAM.

          RAM is cheap, it should not freak people out to see a 512mb recommended anymore.

          Vista technically would run on a 1995 Pentium Processor, but who would want to run any OS on such an old processor, even if Vista's legacy compatibility goes back that far.

          Also I'm not sure how you got OSX 'Tiger' to run a G3, unless you know of a trick I don't know of. I didn't think it would install, nor function properly without the altivec extensions.

          This is kind of a silly debate. I'm not knocking OSX, it REALLY wasn't my point. I was just giving an example that Vista doesn't have that high of tech requirements, truly...

          Take Care.

          • Re:This is getting old (Score:5, Insightful)

            by madgamer ( 766925 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @07:28PM (#15250392) Homepage
            We are running Vista on 400mhz systems with 128mb of RAM. (Systems slower than a G4 400mhz. PERIOD.

            that's great. so ship it.

          • ad infinitum...
            Also I'm not sure how you got OSX 'Tiger' to run a G3, unless you know of a trick I don't know of. I didn't think it would install, nor function properly without the altivec extensions.

            What trick did I use to get OSX 10.4 to run on my G3 800mhz iBook with 640ram?

            Step one: Insert DVD-rom into DVD drive.

            Step two: Click INSTALL.

            Step three: Wait an hour or so.

            Step four: Enjoy Mac OSX 10.4 with, as others have stated, high end functions like Quartz Extreme and the like turned off. They're not sup

          • Re:This is getting old (Score:3, Insightful)

            by hackus ( 159037 )
            No it is not getting old.

            There is a architectural problem here with Windows software in that Redmond keeps making versions of the software to sell more software to lock everyone stupid enough to buy it, in.

            It is insane to use 512MB on a server that doesn't need it just to run the OS on it.

            Let alone a stupid GUI, which doesn't belong on servers anyway.

            More and more software piled ontop of machines to do simple functions make machines easier to break into, not harder to break into. So what do we do? We add
    • I don't think most people really care. I for one have no intention of rushing out and getting it. What will it have that is such an improvement over XP? They can just keep on delaying for all I care.

      • Re:This is getting old (Score:4, Insightful)

        by ron_ivi ( 607351 ) <sdotno.cheapcomplexdevices@com> on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @05:45PM (#15249738)
        What will it have that is such an improvement over XP?

        This is the real reason for the delay.

        So long as Vista is still-in-the-future it will slow companies transitioning to Linux or Mac. As soon as it comes out and the deficiencies are known, organizations will have little reason not to move to Apples which are now superior in all ways except video games.

        This has long been their strategy, as evidenced by this federal judge in 1995

        Last month, the U.S. District Court jurist in Washington suggested barring Microsoft from making vaporware announcements because doing so can allegedly freeze the market and discourage buyers from purchasing competing products.

        And now, as always, the idea that companies should evaluate Vista before switching to mac or linux is a very compelling reason why Microsoft should keep the Vista launch 6-months-away forever.

        • As soon as it comes out and the deficiencies are known, organizations will have little reason not to move to Apples which are now superior in all ways except video games.

          And performance.

          And price.

          And hardware support.

          And possibly software support.

      • Care! (Score:3, Insightful)

        by fm6 ( 162816 )
        Yes, most people don't care — but they should. One thing that's happening with Vista is a total redesign of file and registry access on a "sandbox" model. This is supposed to make life harder for malware authors. That's not a trivial thing, given that many computers out there have thousands of spyware apps running. One possible reason for these repeated delays is the need to tweak these new features so that they don't break a lot of existing apps.

        And a lot of Slashdotters care, because a lot of us w

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @07:22PM (#15250355)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Some "Analysis" (Score:3, Insightful)

    by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) * <[moc.liamg] [ta] [namtabmiaka]> on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @05:07PM (#15249458) Homepage Journal
    "Microsoft still wants to get it out as soon as possible, but slipping from January to March is nowhere near as bad as slipping from shipping before the holidays to after the holidays," a group of Gartner analysts wrote in the report.

    What is this, a game console? What does Microsoft care if it slips for the Holiday season? If anyone gets a computer for Christmas, they're still likely to get it with Microsoft products. If not (i.e. they buy an Apple), I don't see that having Vista out will help that much.

    • Re:Some "Analysis" (Score:5, Insightful)

      by truthsearch ( 249536 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @05:15PM (#15249532) Homepage Journal
      More people will be talking about getting a new computer if there's a new version of Windows on it. More talk == more gift sales. It's a proven statistic that a major Windows release date affects holidy purchases (I just don't have the old data handy at the moment). Of course there are plenty of other factors, like any new game consoles that are out.
      • My understanding was that Microsoft's party line [microsoft.com] is that the enterprise version would be ready in November, but that the consumer version wouldn't be ready until January, anyhow. I wouldn't expect that many businesses worry about Christmas gifts.

    • Re:Some "Analysis" (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MouseR ( 3264 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @05:26PM (#15249617) Homepage
      A lot of big company IT departments make major OS/hardware/infrastructure updates/changes during that period to minimize downtime. They benefit from most employees being on vacation/leave during the same period.

      Also, lots of machines with pre-installed OSes are sold during that period, as gifts. Same goes for box upgrades.
      • No big IT department that I've ever worked for would even consider deploying a just-released OS. There are dozens of compatability issues that need to be addressed, budget needs to be approved, security testing, ad nauseum.

        I'm luckily in a "department of one" right now, but my plant's parent company just approved XP sp2 in February. They had to upgrade SAP, docuvault, vpn client, and many other things.

        No way are they going to go through all that again until Vista has been out, and probably a service pack

    • Re:Some "Analysis" (Score:2, Insightful)

      by elmigs ( 886409 )
      well this isn't bad for MS only. It's said that with vista ready for holidays, duying a computer would be more apealling to the average Joe Doe than that HDTV. Which means that Dell, HP and other PC vendors will suffer the lack of that big reel in form of a "brand new windows"

    • More imporantly (Score:5, Insightful)

      by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @05:33PM (#15249664) Journal
      This is gartner reporting; This is the same group that in 1999 reported that Linux/OSS would penetrate into the server market at most 1% and into the web server market at only 5% by 2004 (5 years). Sadly, Linux was already beating those numbers at that time.

      Generally, Gartner ( and IDC and a few others ) are some of the worse are guessing what the future holds. In fact, I would suggest that their incompetence is so bad, that I would guess that they get at most 25% correct; which means, that most companies would be better off betting against them.

    • Death by Contract (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) * on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @05:56PM (#15249816)
      What is this, a game console? What does Microsoft care if it slips for the Holiday season?

      All sorts of juicy Software Assurance Program subscriptions expire this year. Years ago, Microsoft managed to sucker companies into paying a large lump sum for all the Windows updates over the next six years - including Vista!

      If companies get nothing at all for the duration of the contract, I think you'll see a lot of lawsuits and I know you'll see a lot of dropped "assurance" subscriptions.

      Microsoft is delivering vista to companies even if it has to come in a box with crayon on the disc in place of a label.

      Now you also know why the consumer release is later, because this release is just to meet obligations and in no way will be ready for primetime for you or I.

  • Vista Slogan (Score:5, Funny)

    by frosty_tsm ( 933163 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @05:08PM (#15249466)
    "We won't be releasing it any time soon, but please enjoy the view."

  • What's the hold-up? (Score:5, Funny)

    by RLiegh ( 247921 ) * on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @05:09PM (#15249472) Homepage Journal
    Haven't they finished taking out everything that makes it different from XP yet?!??!?

  • When did MS hire ex (Score:5, Funny)

    by t0qer ( 230538 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @05:09PM (#15249476) Homepage Journal
    Duke Nukem 3D project managers?

  • Brilliant! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Theaetetus ( 590071 ) <<theaetetus.slashdot> <at> <gmail.com>> on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @05:11PM (#15249488) Homepage Journal
    Now if MS actually can meet its launch date, the industry media will praise them, rather than saying, "uh, wasn't this supposed to be released three years ago? And where's all the good features, like Nomad and WinFS?"

  • a distant view (Score:5, Funny)

    by SimonInOz ( 579741 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @05:11PM (#15249493)
    vista (vs't) pronunciation
    n.

    1. A distant view or prospect, especially one seen through an opening, as between rows of buildings or trees.

    Hmm ... "distant" ...

  • Dupe? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Cyberglich ( 525256 ) *
    Did't we know this months ago?

  • Fixing non-problems (Score:5, Insightful)

    by reldruH ( 956292 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @05:12PM (#15249497) Journal
    If this is actually the case, I think Microsoft deserves what's coming to them. The only reason they still have so much market share is because of inertia, but if they can't actually ship a product (even at the already delayed date) they deserve the mass defections that hopefully will be coming. They've dropped a ton of features, they can't ship on time, even Joe six pack will at some point realize that this isn't the company that should be in control of his computer. Like it or not, people aren't going to switch to Linux or OSS because it might be better or because open source is a better sofware development model. They're going to switch because they're having a problem. Nobody's going to go out of their way to fix a problem they don't have. Luckily for us, MS is doing a great job creating those problems.

    • Re:Fixing non-problems (Score:5, Insightful)

      by powerlord ( 28156 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @05:24PM (#15249609) Journal
      The biggest problem MS has been creating by delaying LongHo... I mean Vista isn't just in dropped features.

      Its also in licensing. When MS switched to their new licensing model they promised all their big customers that it would pay since MS SQL server would be out soon, along with a new version of Windows, so it made sense to go for the licensing.

      After the delay MS SQL 2005 experianced, and this, I'll be real surprised if people are willing to believe them again.

      It sounds almost like a Nigerian 419 scam:
      Yeah ... just pay us this big stack of cash and you're entitled to all the versions and updates we produce in the next two years.

      [3 years go by] ... Oh ... were you expecting something?
    • they deserve the mass defections that hopefully will be coming.

      Defections because why, exactly...? Do you know anybody who NEEDS Vista? I certainly don't. Windows 2000 and XP are pretty damn good products, and I know that we're not upgrading because there's no reason to. Vista will be just a "gee whiz, this is neat" thing if/when we ever buy new computers again.

      Luckily for us, MS is doing a great job creating those problems.

      What problems, exactly?

    • Re:Fixing non-problems (Score:5, Informative)

      by pla ( 258480 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @07:07PM (#15250283) Journal
      if they can't actually ship a product (even at the already delayed date) they deserve the mass defections that hopefully will be coming.

      "Mass defections"?

      People (not talking about Geeks, here) upgrade their OS when they upgrade their PC. Not before, and not after.

      They don't buy a Mac because Vista takes too long to come out. They don't install Linux because Vista takes too long to come out. They don't install "make XP look like Vista" themes because Vista takes too long to come out.

      They run what they buy. When it crashes, or spyware makes it unuseable... Do they reinstall XP? Hell No! They buy a new PC.


      If their new PC comes with XP, they will run XP. If their new PC comes with Vista, they will run Vista. Their new PC won't run anything else, because Walmart doesn't sell PCs loaded with anything else in-store (Linspire boxes via their web store matter about as much as Macs do).


      It doesn't take much more analysis than that, sadly. You want to know why Microsoft won't sweat this delay? Because it won't affect either their sales or their market penetration by even 1%.


      And as for the much-discussed "business" buyers - Working in a job where I would play a very significant role in the decision to "Switch", I can say that Microsoft has nothing to worry about (except that almost no one wants to upgrade to Vista, much less to an entirely different OS). If Vista doesn't ship until 2094, very little would make me happier. Vista will break working programs in exchange for virtually no new features. Why on Earth would anyone want it? We'll eventually upgrade only because Microsoft will leave us no choice - Keep in mind that a lot of fortune-500s (dare I say "the majority of them"?) still run NT4 servers and Win98 desktops, and you'll get the general idea.

  • Gartner excels (Score:3, Funny)

    by bstadil ( 7110 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @05:16PM (#15249535) Homepage
    From the article:

    "Microsoft still wants to get it out as soon as possible

    Amazing insight. Worth every penny spend on the report

  • News? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by slashbob22 ( 918040 )
    It's like announcing that a herd of turtles is reaching the finish line. It's big, it's bulky and everyone knows it's coming. The question is anyone will give a hare's tail once it finally arrives - or will the rabbit (or penguin) finally win the race?

  • Wow... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GmAz ( 916505 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @05:19PM (#15249566) Journal
    For everyone here that is dogging Vista, you sure are pissed when it gets delayed even more. I would figure that you would be loving the fact that Microsoft is pushing it farther and farther back. It sure seems like you guys can't wait for it to be here. I say when it gets here, it gets here.
    • Employed many times by MS: viz. "Don't switch to FOSS/Mac/Whatev because there's a big great new system coming out any day/month/decade now"
    • For everyone here that is dogging Vista, you sure are pissed when it gets delayed even more.

      Yeah, but what about those of us dodging it? (More Vista delays, more chances for Linux and ReactOS! :) )

  • Better late (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Paralizer ( 792155 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @05:19PM (#15249570) Homepage
    than ridiculously full of bugs. If they rush a product that isn't ready it would generate even worse publicity than constantly delaying it. It's done when it's done (tm). Inevitably (for those of you who don't like MS), it's still going to have a heaping pile of flaws, but hopefully not as many. No one wants another Windows ME.

  • If anyone actually expected MS to be on time... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by AriaStar ( 964558 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @05:19PM (#15249571) Journal
    ...clearly you aren't familiar with their history of being a pain in the ass. As soon as Leopard comes out, I'm going Mac.
  • "It's not THAT late."

    "Still better than Linux"

    "It's only because MS is so far ahead already; they feel no need to rush their product out the door."

    "This time they'll get the security issues right."

    "Damned if they do, damned if they don't. You Linux advocates complain no matter what; admit that this way they'll avoid the bugs!"

    "It's Windows! It's the biggest project anywhere! 3 million lines of code! And it's Vista, the biggest upgrade yet! What's a few months between friends? Vista is WAY bigger than any Linux distribution!"

    "Microsoft has to be enterprise ready. Linux is for dweebs and nerds. Of course Windows has a longer release cycle; that's 'cause its better"

    "It's not fair; if MS didn't have to deal with all these vindictive, nerdy hackers, Windows wouldn't take so long to develop. Imagine if Apple or Linux had to deal with these black hat hackers."

    "We're MS. The Volume Goes to 11 Here."

    Did I miss any?

    • Re:Cue MS trolls (Score:5, Funny)

      by sharkey ( 16670 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @07:57PM (#15250522)
      "Vista ain't done, 'til Boot Camp don't run."

  • ...perhaps Micro$ofts goose will finally get good and cooked like they have deserved for so long.

  • Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by g0at ( 135364 ) <ben@z[ ]at.ca ['ygo' in gap]> on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @05:25PM (#15249612) Homepage Journal
    No, really, who cares? Are there people clamoring to get their hands on this new OS ASAP (WTF BBQ) and who will be extremely put out if it is not available until later on in the future? My question for these people is: what will this new OS do for you that isn't true right now?

    And as a side note, I am really bloody tired of reading stories about things that "analysts" think. "Joe Analyst issues a note to Judy Analyst, under the table, in the back of the classroom. Investors giggled to themselves and rubbed their index fingers together..."

    -b

    • My question for these people is: what will this new OS do for you that isn't true right now?

      Apply this question to any OS release, be it from Microsoft, Linux, Apple, or someone else. Generally there are things that people come to expect in the new release. Sometimes it's better security. Sometimes it's better stability. Sometimes it's improved networking, better utilization of CPU resources, or something else.

      For a long time now, Microsoft has been billing Vista as The Next Big Thing. As they promise

  • The headline is kinda sensationalist...Gartner is projecting that MS won't ship Vista based on the released data of beta2...pure speculation on thier part based on how Win2k's cyle worked...

    sorry, but nothing to see here...

  • Trainwreck! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by MCSEBear ( 907831 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @05:32PM (#15249656)
    Is there anyone left who does not think that Windows Vista is a big long drawn out trainwreck. A project that has to be delayed over and over and over and over. Compare this to the development of the OS they copy. Apple has shipped product over and over.

    If you can't manage to ship one of the two products you make all your money on, what does that say about the management of Microsoft?

  • Rush job? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fortunato ( 106228 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @05:37PM (#15249690)
    Personally I don't understand why anyone would even consider touching this before its been out for at least a few months if not a year. It's quite apparent they are trying to rush this thing out the door. I'll be highly surprised if it isn't one huge bug infested mess. I certainly wouldn't want to depend on it for anything.

  • This just in! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Slithe ( 894946 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @05:40PM (#15249703) Homepage Journal
    Microsoft announced, in a (very) recent press release, some of the exciting technlologies in Windows Vista. Apparently, the aging NT kernel has been scrapped, and the new Windows kernel will use a combination of the GNU/Hurd and the L4 microkernel to power its next-gen operating system. While desktop users might not care about what is under the hood, they will be amazed at the next-gen Windows desktop, which uses the E17 shell. Gamers of the world will rejoice, because Microsoft has replaced the venerable MS Solitaire card game with Duke Nukem: Forever. In a possible attempt to squash threats from the World Wide Web (again), Microsoft has leveraged Udanax infrastructure to provide 'transclusion' technologies. This will surely be the greatest Windows Operating System ever, if not the greatest Operating System ever!
  • For a mass-market product such as Vista, three months is probably the time it takes to print the CD-s and move the enormous quantity of product boxes/packages to mom&pops computer stores everywhere. So, have they started printing CD-s just now?
  • And in other news, Duke Nukem Forever pushes back the release of their Vista version by another year due to these concerns.

  • Give it up... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tymbow ( 725036 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @05:48PM (#15249768)

    I'm a bit of a Microsoft fanboy but personally I think they should just give up on Vista. It's a trainwreck of a project and I can see another Windows ME in the making. I can't see many compelling reasons to deploy this in an existing environment. It's (for the most part) just a Windows XP clone with a few new features with a pretty UI and steep hardware requirements.

    Microsoft should take all the half decent features out of Vista, back port them to Windows XP and call it Windows XP Service Pack 3 or Windows XP R2 then site down and have a good long think before they try this again.

    It's about time Microsoft seriously thought about re-architecting their operating system from the ground up. If we can get Windows applications running under Linux with WINE, then surely Microsoft can get Windows applications running under some new operating system thus satisfying the backwards compatibility requirements. There are far too many issues with Windows appearing that are grounded in its architecture such as reduced privileges which is difficult to make work because Windows is not truly multi-user etc. etc. etc.

    Give it up, start again and do it properly.

    • Re:Give it up... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @06:47PM (#15250184) Journal
      "It's about time Microsoft seriously thought about re-architecting their operating system from the ground up"

      Actually that was the problem.

      MS did decide to rewrite alot of it from scratch and then the performance and compatibility were not what Microsoft hoped for.

      So they decided to use the XP code base and go back to square one and rewrite %60 of the code that was fresh. I knew it would be remade in 6 months! 60%?? Try a year, maybe 18 months? That is just huge.

      For more info you can do a google search and slashdot covered it a month or two ago?

      No wonder Elchin was fired. To me I would have just used the new code and not reverted back. Get the thing out the door!

      So in other words it will use new security techniques on old code that dates back from Windows95 and NT3.1.

    • Re:Give it up... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Matthias Wiesmann ( 221411 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @07:00PM (#15250257) Homepage Journal
      It's about time Microsoft seriously thought about re-architecting their operating system from the ground up.
      I suspect that this is what they have been doing, and the reason they are late. The main issue of WINE and I suspect of any reasonably clean re-implementation of the Windows API will run into the same issues: emulating bugs and un-documented behavior. Rewriting a clean version is only half of the game, the other is to tell developers to stop using system X call and that behaviour Y will not be supported anymore. Either that, or your code needs to reproduce the undocumented behaviour which is difficult and will result in not so clean code.

      Apple did clean up its API by moving from the classic Mac OS Toolbox to the Carbon API which is basically a cleaned up version of the former. The transition took time, and old programs had to run in a emulated version of the previous OS. It is also interesting that Apple chose this approach after the let's rewrite the OS from the group up, plan failed.

      Following such path would be, I suspect, quite painful for Microsoft:

      • The move to OS X brought Mac users a lot of new features (basically many advantages of Unix), the advantages of Vista are not so clear, especially now that many features have been cut out.
      • The number of Windows applications is much larger, this means more program using strange calls, and more users and programmers complaining that their application does not run on the new OS.
      • I suspect that games would be particularly affected, support for games has always been an important factor for the acceptance of Microsoft operating systems.
      • Microsoft has many low-level API like DirectX that Apple did not have to worry about
      • If Microsoft succeeds and most applications start to rely on a cleaned up API, this API will be much more easy to reverse-engineer by projects like WINE.

  • Tired of bogus release dates??? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by shogarth ( 668598 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @05:53PM (#15249794)
    From TFA:
    Microsoft originally targeted a 2005 launch for the new Windows, then pushed the release out to 2006 before announcing in March that Vista would again be delayed to improve the product's quality.

    Am I the only one that remembers that "Longhorn" was supposed to follow XP about three years? I went a Googling and found plenty of chatter back in 2002 about how pissy customers would be if their new, expensive Software Assurance didn't include an upgrade to the new OS within three years. One of Microsoft's VPs even suggested MS would "do something" [computerworld.com] if the date slipped that far. It seems that the reporters don't remember anything preceding the original, official release date of 2005.

  • You can't make this stuff up (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gillbates ( 106458 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @05:56PM (#15249815) Homepage Journal

    OK, first of all, this is Gartner, not MS making the claims. From the article:

    said the new Windows Vista operating system is too complex to be able to meet Microsoft's targeted November release... [emphasis added]

    Yes, this is the same Gartner that said that Linux was too complex to have been written by Linus Torvalds...

    But, it gets better:

    Once production starts, it usually takes between six- to eight-weeks for PC manufacturers to load the operating system onto new computers, Gartner said.

    Six weeks! - and I thought I had a slow hard drive when it took two hours to install Linux.

    Perhaps that should have been "six to eight weeks to begin shipping..."?

  • The most appropriate comment would appear to be... (Score:4, Funny)

    by metroplex ( 883298 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @05:59PM (#15249842) Homepage
    Hasta la vista!

    Sorry, sorry.

  • Tell me again, what's coming in Vista? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dtjohnson ( 102237 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @06:15PM (#15249956)
    Windows 95 brought TCP/IP and a web browser. Windows 98 brought USB and FAT32. Windows 2K/XP brought multi-user and NTFS. Quick, in 30 seconds or less, what is Vista is going to have that's interesting? I predict it will a draconian DRM thingy to go with some product activation scheme even more onerous that WinXP. Yeah, that's got me excited...not.

    • It ... umm... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @06:44PM (#15250163)
      Yeah, well, it ... it ...

      IT HAS A 3D USER INTERFACE!!!1!1!!!1111

      Whew. 28 seconds.

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @06:26PM (#15250045)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • In related news... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by moosesocks ( 264553 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2006 @06:27PM (#15250059) Homepage
    In reponse to this news, Apple stock was up 3% [google.com] today.

    This is a dangerous game Microsoft's playing.

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