Windows Vista is long overdue, have undergone a series of delays and push back release dates which has brought unrest and total dissatisfaction to investors.

When is it actually launching?

Per Microsoft release, Windows Vista is out by January of 2007 but a number of indicators say otherwise because of NVidia bugs, Audio problems and unconfirmed crashes of all sorts. A lot of groups and people seem reluctant to believe that the software giant is going to hit its’ date. Microsoft Vista Blog posted that Gartner estimates the release date pushed as far as the second quarter, Goldman Sachs analyst Rick Sherlund bets on a March or April date, while Bill Gates says he’s only 80 percent confident of the January deadline.

How Disturbing is Delay?

The most critical thing a push back will hit is the stock market – Microsoft’s value is going to fall maybe some percentage points but “some” is a lot for a company whose investment is as big as Microsoft’s war chest. The industry will be laughing at Microsoft’s capability on delivering as promised and the whole world would feast and be taking a stab at the industry behemoth. Around 700 million windows users will shake their heads once again, getting impatient on the release date.

Does it Really Matter if it gets Delayed?

Definitely yes, but the question we should be asking is whether it matters if it’s released with bugs? I don’t think so. Microsoft has never been known for a company that release stable builds, and most of their products if not all have service packs delivered fast enough before you even get to appreciate the software. The 80 percent release chance on January as said by Bill Gates should actually translate into a fine build since their philosophy that stood for ages is releasing tolerable and acceptable buggy software and counter-attack with service packs and patches afterwards.

The Landscape has Changed.

On one side, I could say industries have grown hungrier of quality/stable releases, and customers expect more from what they are paying for. Other than that, an explosion of internet media from blogging, podcasting and video blogging brings a whole new level of quality evaluators to the table ready to trash and destroy a company’s reputation for any poor product release.

Can Microsoft still Pull-It-Off?

The Microsoft trick of releasing not so good software has worked wonders for them all this time but can they pull this trick from their bag and use it efficiently on Windows Vista?

Let’s look at complains on the latest build of Microsoft Windows Vista:

Audio problems that caused the recent speech recognition demo fiasco.

Video problems relating to NVidia drivers.

According to Bradley Stewart from his comment made on a post at Geekzone, that is an NVidia problem and he also confirmed that playing FEAR and NHL06 is faster than in XP and has no problems using it including playing counterstrike. Overall he says he’s impressed with the new version.

I agree on the video problems being an NVidia problem and the worst scenario could see customers getting a different upgraded video driver instead because:

1. It’s cheap
2. Customer always has the itch for a better/newer driver all the time

On the audio problems per se, it is big especially when Windows Vista’s selling point is its’ multimedia capabilities bringing users a different level of satisfaction. If the root cause audio problems stem to more audio related problems then that is serious though if the context of the problem is limited to speech recognition then it should not be a heart breaker for the customer. Also, this should not be rocket science from a technical perspective that should fit well in a later patch.

Microsoft’s has done it’s best to run away from their old style of product releases and have placed significant efforts on this; and the industry have seen more beta releases in each of their product line before kick-off which is highly commendable, but for Windows Vista, I believe they have pushed the dates far enough beyond acceptability. Less is more and they should start getting serious on releasing this on time and go for quick patch release from there.

The bugs in Windows Vista is not mission critical enough to cripple an enterprise or fuel accidents of sorts, but as such are points that lower customer satisfaction which they should be aware of before purchase of the product. I am sure the initial release will be met with hostility but customers would always have the itch to upgrade and get used to a greater experience sans bugs found later on. Microsoft is the only one thinking that this will impact their credibility, but the truth is, people are so used to their buggy first releases that it should not matter anymore. The battle they have engaged in to change their image into high caliber software developers have already made a point as Windows Vista is already leaps and bounds better than all their prior releases.

Are the Customers in the Losing End?

As I said, it isn’t mission critical and the greater experience is enough for the meantime as long as they get it fixed ASAP. Testing windows on millions of users is better than a select group of beta testers, a strategy they have successfully implemented. Unless you’re using Windows Vista to power your aircraft worth billions of dollars into space, then there’s no reason not to purchase the software.

What’s Next?

Microsoft’s is going to release this software by January as their culture and gut instincts would strongly tell them so.

[tags]Microsoft, Windows Vista[/tags]