Why was Vista delayed?

According to PCWorld:

Microsoft delayed the Vista launch from November to January to avoid putting the product out during the year-end sales season when a change in PC line-ups and operating systems could cause problems for vendors.

Whaaat? So the theory is.... vendors and retailer will be telling punters

"Hey... come buy your brand new PC in December 2006... cuz Microsoft is going to launch a new operating system in January 2007 and then you can go pay full retail of $600 rather than get it shipped with your PC!"

Is this seriously what the official line is? Frank? Can you shed light on this buddy?

Anyways, according to that same article, Ballmer is now suggesting the consumer version might NOT come out in January after all. Hey - we're all stunned and shocked at THAT news.

 

Comments

[Pascal Venier]

... Life as a Microsofty!

[Tony]

Not really news but what I heard was the vendors were extremely pissed offf when Microsoft made this decisionfor the very point your trying to make. Why will people buy a new PC at Christmas with XP when they know in 2-3 months they can get a new one with a free copy of Vista. They are expecting big losses over the Christmas period this year.

I am sure I read on Techmeme in last week or so that Vista was going to be delayed again. Not sure if that was only rumour or not but lots of people are still not satisfied how Vista is progressing through beta according to several blogs. Then again we know bloggers don't have any credibility don't we Rob.

[Gnoll110]

Gnoll110 notes that Micro$oft no longer includes the year in the names of their OSs (Windows 95 etc) ;)

[Rob Irwin]

Well, you could ask Frank, or you could also ask a journo who's covered every OS swap since Windows 95 and used to edit Windows Magazine... *cough*

Oh look, I even covered this topic a few months ago... http://www.arnnet.com.au/index.php?id=1700467417

Also, something I will toss in is the M$ stickering campaign I covered earlier this month... http://www.arnnet.com.au/index.php?id=1491019985

And, to conclude, it's been rare for machines to ship so close to a new OS without a subsidised copy of the new OS being made available when it comes out, or some other kind of OS rebate, so your example of paying $600 is a bit over-dramatic, too. Microsoft does look after it's PC builders and retail partners.

[Cameron Reilly]

unless the rebate is 100%, I still think consumers are going to hold off wherever possible.

[Rob Irwin]

Yes, and that's a very valid point. I think a new OS on the horizon is always a tough time for the retailers/resellers/distributors/builders and I do think sales will be down (which is a topic played-out in some of the recent stories I've written, too), but I did want to point out that it won't be quite as bad as you paint, either ;)

[Gnoll110]

What was that old rule about buying microsoft software? Arr yes, never buy version 1.0 ;)

[Rob Irwin]

Gnoll, that's a great point, and I think it's covered in one of the stories I linked to (if not, it must have been another M$ story I wrote recently), where a guy basically said that business isn't likely to jump directly on the new OS anyway, so any perceived hardware sales pre-Vista probably weren't going to happen unless a company was really, really, really desperate for new hardware.

The spike that people mostly talk about going MIA, pre-Xmas, is in the consumer sales side of things -- and they aren't as affected by the theory of not buying into a new M$ OS until SP1 or similar. Consumers, on the whole, just aren't that savvy. They'll buy anything "new and improved".

[Phillip Molly Malone]

I don't know if its just them not being savvy as much as some of them being happy to live on the edge. Look at all the people happy to install the betas and Release Candits.
Molly

[Gnoll110]

My gamer friends & I don't upgrade our home PCs until we hear that the stability of the most recent service pack is better than the last service pack for the old Windows OS.

Personally I only run Windows on one PC, my top-end client/games machine. Everything else is Linux, generally Debian based.

Molly, depends, I'm happy to try candidates for OS (Open Source) Software.

[Rob Irwin]

My gamer friends & I don't upgrade our home PCs until we hear that the stability of the most recent service pack is better than the last service pack for the old Windows OS.

Does anything you just typed in those lines reveal that you aren't the kind of person I'm referring to as consumers?

You identify as being both (1) a gamer, which is typically a very savvy demographic and, (2) a fairly hardcore Linux user which is, again, not your average consumer.

[Gnoll110]

I know my way around a mainframe and big databases too. I make my money being 1) better that the average ... and 2) more pedantic (measured pedantic now means less rework later).

By definition 50% of the people are in the dumb half of the population ;)

Just added that post to show what I think is a safe way to proceed. I also wouldn't buy from the first year or twos production of a new line of car.

[Gnoll110]

G110:Personally I only run Windows on one PC, my top-end client/games machine. Everything else is Linux, generally Debian based.
RI:(2) a fairly hardcore Linux user which is, again, not your average consumer.

One point here is that I didn't set out to be a fairly hardcore Linux user.

I set software availability as my primary selection criteria and stability & security as my secondary selection criteria. There is only a small set of games software that ties one machine to using Windows. For the rest, the secondary criteria come into play, so Linux wins there.

Only extra cost is that of the overhead of knowing & running two OSs. This is not really an extra cost, as all my recent work gigs have had Windows based work stations on their in-house LANs. I'd maintain/learn windows stuff, anyway.

[Rob Irwin]

Whatever you set out to be, or not, gnoll, I was responding to you saying that Windows was essentially for games and "everything else" goes the Linux route for you. That is, whether you "set out to be that way" or not, it's still pretty hardcore in my book. Your average user out there isn't running Linux at all, let alone using it for "everything" save the stuff they really can't -- or don't want to -- use it for, such as games.

I often find when I talk to people through tech-centric blogs that they have a very skewed view of what an average PC user is as they tend to think its something similar to them and their mates when, in reality, it's anything but. Trust me, gnoll, you're not the average PC user I was referring to, earlier.

[Gnoll110]

I know I'm not average (I hope).

I'm just trying to layout, the hows & were fors of the why I do what I do.

My view is not too skewed (I hope), I know I'm out at one end of the bell curve. In the things you do seriously, that is where you want to be, and push away from the norm ;)

Ummm, that does beg the question about the ways being a Pro Journo may also skew ones view?

[Rob Irwin]

Honestly, I think being a full time tech journo opens your eyes more, rather than skews you. When I was writing on Family PC magazazine, back in the day, I was talking to users in the home who were, essentially a step above clueless. When I was on PC Magazine, the demopgraphic shifted up several notches to be smart home users and SMB operators. Moving over to PC Week, I was talking to the enterprise. Freelancing for ICON (In the SMH and Age) and PC User, I was talking to different people again. When I edited Windows (2000) Magazine, that was a new kettle of fish and then, after that, when I was editor of itGraphics, it was the grahpic design crowd. Now I'm on ARN and talking to vendors/distributors/resellers. Different again. And, throughout, when I've been contributing to related websites like zdnet.com.au or itnews.com.au or contributing editor to Information Week or CRN or whatever... it's all been different.

OK, so not all IT journo's have my decade of experience, nor the breadth of so many idustries under their belt. But I thought it might be useful to point out that while you think a journo's view might be skewed, I actually find my view is really broad and open, given the numerous markets I've catered for, over the years.

[Gnoll110]

My initial comments in this thread were a couple of one-liners about Microsoft and a couple of posts about my operating system philosophies at home.

Why does my background & experience automatically make my views, that you derided by calling ‘skews’, inferior to yours! I will grant your command of English is better that mine, using skew instead of views, neat trick. Took me a few posts to pick up that newspeak/unspeak side of hand.

Our backgrounds affect our views. In this debate, that difference in our professional backgrounds appears to differentiate our views enough to put us at loggerheads.

I reject the idea that a professional trained journo who reports IT has generally more valid views that someone who works in the industry (for the same or long period of time).

I will accept that our experience gives us different views.

[Rob Irwin]

When did I say your views were inferior to mine? I am utterly perplexed. They are different but, without even re-reading this thread, I know I haven't said, "Hey man, you're inferior!"

So, yeah... completely perplexed here.

[Gnoll110]

I guess your usage of skew is different to mine.

adj 2, Distorted or biased in meaning or effect.

[Bob M]

I liked Grady Booch's take on the Vista slippage. See his blog post entitled "Postmortem of Microsoft Vista" on March 28, 2006:

http://www.booch.com/architecture/blog.jsp?archive=2006-03.html