Vista A Work In Progress

Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer admits that the five year cycle between new operating systems was too long.

Even Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, has admitted that the Windows Vista OS isn’t perfect. Speaking at the Most Valuable Professional Summit in Seattle, which was organised by his company, he said,   "I think we did a lot of things right, and Ithink we have a lot of things we need to learn from," according to remarks quoted by the Seattle P-I.   When pressed on the five-year delaybetween Windows XP and Vista, he responded:   "Can we just sort of kiss that stone and move on? Because it turns out many things become problematic when you have those long release cycles.We can’t ever let that happen again."   Ballmer gave a confirmation on the 2010 release date for Windows 7, but was cagey on the fate of XP. Currently it will not be available for sale onmost computers after July.   "I know we are going to continue to get feedback from people on how long XP should be available. We have some opinions on that. We have expressed ourviews."