Details are still coming in, but the Wall Street Journal has just reported that Microsoft will delay the release of
Windows Vista from the second half of 2006 until January
of 2007. This marks the second delay for Microsoft's next generation operating system.
In a conference call with press and
analysts, Jim Allchin, the co-president of Microsoft's Platforms &
Services Division, said that the company plans to release Windows
Vista under "general availability" in January 2007.
Microsoft has previously stated that it would delay the release of Vista if it meant launching with a higher quality product. This is a January 26th quote from Microsoft's Jim Allchin:
When we
do something like Windows that’s literally going to [have] hundreds of
millions of users using it, we want to build the highest-quality piece
of software we can within a reasonable time frame. But at a certain
point we make a determination: is this good enough for hundreds of
millions or not? And if you rush something like that, then you end up
harming everyone—our partners, us, our customers, so it has to be top
of line.
Microsoft just released the
latest Enterprise
CTP build of Windows Vista late last month. You can read Paul Thurrott's thoughts on that build here.