Vista delayed so what?

OK everybody heard about Vista launch delayed so what is the big problem here? After all it's only for the better.

Vista is there to stay for years so what's the troubles if we have to wait a bit? I don't understand the fuss. People are expecting too much now. After all it won't be the first time and not the only company to report some delay.

Look at Sony with the Playstation 3 delayed back to November, doesn't bother me at all. I join Scoble with this quote:

"... I’ve learned that dates in the software industry are likely to slip and I’m glad that our management is still paying more attention to product quality and customer and partner feedback than trying to meet some date. Yes, it’s painful. Yes, it’s embarrassing. But we have been through product slips before (before I was a Microsoft employee I was a beta tester on Windows 2000 which slipped years after the first test CDs arrived) and I’d rather have a slipped date than a cruddy product.  ..."

 

4 Comments

  • Uhhh, maybe there are some retailers that had relied on Microsoft's assurances throughout the past year that Vista would be ready to sell during the holiday season?!? There must be a ton of partners that Microsoft had aligend to support a launch and they had planned with an earlier release date. For them it is a big thing.

  • David you have a point there, but at the end of the day consumers can benefit from that. Look at the messy launch of Visual Studio 2005, where we have to wait after patches or service packs to get a better experience.

    No I believe it's a right move from Microsoft. After all we are talking about a big new platform, not just a service pack.

  • I simply don't think Vista will have the uptake that MS is counting on.



    Few reasons (all IMHO):



    1) Very confusing product matrix; too many versions. Don't say XP had the same number of versions; though maybe in theory 'true', really there's only two: Home and Professional.

    2) To Joe Blogs who only needs e-mail, web browsing and some Office functionality, XP Home SP2 is more than enough. The fancy glass UI (Aero) and BitLocker encryption isn't going to sway them over.

    3) MS are too heavily (almost solely) relying on bundling this (OEM versions with new PC's) and as David has pointed out, now the final release has been delayed (again!) this is a big deal, and my guess is they may lose partners as a result.



    I'd like someone to tell me what each Vista version brings to the table in terms of end user functionality. Not marketing blurb.



    Kind of playing devil's advocate here (because as a developer I'd get my hands on it as soon as I can) - but I guess someone has to.

  • The problem is that MS only seem to release code as part of a monolithic major version "product", which means we have to wait ages for improvements (see Visual Studio). If they adopted a more iterative approach to releases, they would still be able to manage quality without dumping five years worth of code on their customers.



    Quicker release cycle == quicker feedback == a better product.



    Jim

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