Setting expectations for Vista and Office ship dates

Bill Gates just gave a speech in South Africa. According to the AP report:

Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates said Tuesday there was an 80 percent chance the company’s next-generation operating system, Vista, would be ready in January.

[…]

“We got to get this absolutely right,” Gates said. “If the feedback from the beta tests shows it is not ready for prime time, I’d be glad to delay it.”

[…]

Gates said he hoped the next version of Office would be ready in December.

Hope, as they say, is not a development plan.

Without seeing the exact transcript of BillG’s words, I can’t really say what he meant. But the formulation “would be ready” implies “released to manufacturing (RTM).” If so, then the January date for Windows Vista represents a delay of about two months based on the last announcement from Microsoft. That sounds about right to me.

The one thing I think you can say with confidence based on this report is that you won’t be able to buy Office 2007 or Windows Vista this year.

(via Microsoft News Tracker)