In a new subscription-only report, the Gartner Group market research firm is predicting Microsoft’s forthcoming Windows Vista operating system won’t see wide availability until the second quarter of 2007, some nine to twelve months after the release of Vista Beta 2. Gartner points to Microsoft’s previous track record for major operating system revisions, noting Windows 2000 took 16 months between final beta and golden-master release. It thinks Microsoft’s planned five-month interval between Beta 2 and a final release is overly optimistic.
For its part, Microsoft disagrees with Gartner’s assessment and tersely says it is on target to release Vista to business clients in October 2006, with consumer availability coming in January 2007, just as it announced in March.
Interestingly, Gartner isn’t sounding any major alarm bells over further delay for Windows Vista, noting that a delay from the first quarter of a year to the second quarter is nowhere near as critical to markets as missing the end-of-year holiday buying season: Microsoft has already confirmed Vista won’t be available for general consumers by the 2006 holidays, so an additional three to five months of delay may frustrate developers and manufacturers wanting to get Vista-dependent products to market, but may not have a significant impact on the consumer marketplace.
