Windows Vista, Can You See It Now?

Let me fill in the dialogue for the picture above: Girl on Left: Can you see Windows Vista? Guy on Right: Uh, it looked like sometime later this year... Girl: But? Guy: No, wait, it look looks like sometime early next year... Girl: But? Guy: Uh, they just reorganized the Windows division, can't see it on the horizon anymore... Girl: Sigh... Hey, if you haven't heard yet: Windows Vista is being delayed. Since this OS has been worked on for the greater part of the last five years, it is really not surprising that Microsoft has delayed the launch. This delay in launch will not hurt Microsoft at all -- I highly doubt that people will go running off to buy Apple machines just because they can't get Windows Vista on a new computer. No, I think this delay in launch will hurt Microsoft OEMs. People will delay their purchases of new machines because of Microsoft's inability to meet their original launch date. And by putting the "new" launch date so close to the "old" one, that will only make people hold off on buying a new computer. Why buy a new computer with XP on it when Vista is right around the corner? Hell, even free upgrade coupons wouldn't convince someone to do that. Why? Why bother with the whole upgrade process when you can just wait a month or three to have a computer pre-loaded with the new OS? Microsoft is hurting their OEMs and I am sure that the OEMs will not forget about this anytime soon. Apple, will definitely not license Mac OS X to PC makers anytime soon. But, if Steve Jobs were crazy enough to do so, he would probably win a few market percentage points with that move -- highly doubtful though. It is too bad that Linux hasn't garnered as much love as Mac OS X has on the consumer side of the house. I definitely would not stick my mom with SuSE, but would not hesitate to give her a Mac OS X machine.  Hell, my sister and her husband are Mac OS X converts because they started using my iBook 600.  Linux is still not ready for mainstream -- even with good distributions like SuSE. So, until Microsoft can get their long-in-tooth OS out the door, they continue to put a strain on those PC makers that sell their OS.