It wasn;t long ago that anytime Microsoft gave a ship-date target for a brand new Windows release, IT managers would add anyplace between some months to a couple a long time to it when figuring their upgrade schedules.As nuts because it seems, the new way to determine when a brand new Windows release will ship seems to get to subtract a couple of months or maybe a 12 months from what the Softies are promising publicly.Situation in stage: Windows seven. Microsoft officials have already been insisting for the past year-plus that early 2010 is the meant ship target. The one difficulty: That;s not what organization representatives have already been telling consumers, OEM partners along with a select few others. Certain individuals are expecting Windows seven in 2009 — anyplace from mid-year to Q3. At the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference this week,
Office 2007 Ultimate, one Microsoft exec told session attendees publicly that Windows 7 is tracking to be released to manufacturing in mid-2009, so as to enable back-to-school preloads.Windows officials have been trying to dampen expectations so that if they ship in 2009, they;ll be considered to have delivered early. If they hit their worst-case date, they;ll still be “on time.”The Windows team currently showed its hand here with Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1). Publicly,
Microsoft Office 2007 Pro Plus, the company (once it acknowledged the existence of SP1) said SP1 would be out by the end of the first quarter of 2008. The actual ship date: Mid-December 2007. Not a huge difference,
Office Professional Plus 2010, but enough to become important to some clients and partners.Being “early” doesn;t seem problematic until you consider shoppers and business users who are trying to plan when and if to upgrade to a brand new version of Windows or to delay their PC purchases a bit so as to get able to buy Windows seven preloaded on a new machine instead of Vista. These folks aren;t working with good/real data in crafting their future purchasing plans.Here are the whisper dates for Windows 7 I;ve been hearing: Feature-complete, public Beta 1: The week before Christmas 2008 (Microsoft is saying Q1 2009)No public Beta 2 (Microsoft isn;t saying whether there will undoubtedly be a Beta 2)Release Candidate: Q1/Q2 2009 (Microsoft is saying there will likely be “a release candidate” but offering no due date)RTM: Mid-2009 (Microsoft is saying “early 2010″) (There are a number of wild cards to factor in here, like possible law suits,
Office 2007 Product Key, OEMs not being able to preload in time to make a certain launch goal,
Office Standard, etc. But these are the dates I;ve been hearing through the grapevine for that month-plus.)When anyone asks me whether they should buy a brand new PC now or wait, I tell them I;m banking on getting a new Windows 7 PC next fall. What are your ship-date expectations for Windows seven, at this point?
Office 2007 Ultimate The new rules for calculating
Linear Mode
