Forum Moderators: open
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."Microsoft's track record is clear," Gartner said in a research note. "It consistently misses target dates for major operating system releases. We don't expect broad availability of Windows Vista until at least 2Q '07."
And it'll probably have all the bugs worked out on release . . . right?
They have a very high standard to live up to in XP. I - and many others - feel XP is the best product ms has ever put out. I would rather wait, and have them "get it right" than rush it and get it wrong. What we have right now is working good.
A Google OS might not work. It will just fragment a lot more the Linux market share. Perhaps a partnership with Red Hat could be the answer.
But then "The Sound And The Fury" ( see [byte.com...] ) of the anti-Microsoft crowd will not let such a partnership happen.
The lack of competition thanks in part to "The Sound And The Fury" permits Microsoft decide the best time to release Vista.
My guess is this puts the Mac mini in a very nice position.
Mack.
Like other people said, its better to try and make the OS as smooth as possible as opposed to creating tons of service packs/patches that could've easily been resolved. Creating patches and upgrading systems is a hassle for both Microsoft and their consumers.
I'd also say regarding Brett's comment about XP being the best thing MS ever did that, well if that's the best, and we all know how insecure it's been, with regular patches, then I'd hate to see the worst.
Seriously, I love XP myself, but it came in for criticism by leading expert Steve Gibson when it came out, for leaving so many internet ports open. I don't know if that's true or not, but I have also heard that they've had to close many ports down over time due to hackers exploiting them.
MS really need to concentrate on security in Vista. There can't afford to be any parts of the code which can lead to security attacks (through things like buffer overruns in JPEG files etc).
I think the direction they are heading is the right one, but I won't be surprised when Vista emerges, only to be hacked repeatedly for the first six months or more, as numerous 'bugs' are ironed out. This opinion is due to a) their track record, and b) the complexity of the code.
Perhaps we've reached a stage where a modern OS is too complex to be ever guaranteed safe? And yet Apple seem to manage it. I have even heard that Mac users don't bother with anti-virus software!
(Myself, I've been running Linux since 1993 - kernel 0.99pl14 - and I'm looking forward to retiring and never having to deal with Windows again.)
