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Microsoft Adds Product Delays and Vapourware

Summary: Microsoft talks about the future rather than the present as decent products fail to come out

MICROSOFT has decided to postpone quite a few releases in the past week or two [1, 2]. Here is another new delay:

Microsoft delays Forefront business security client six months



Microsoft’s Forefront team is again delaying a piece of its next-generation “Stirling” suite of products.


This may be just a delay, but Microsoft is also killing a product almost every week or two. At the request of a reader, we have created this new list of dead products and services from Microsoft.

Microsoft loves blaming the overly-hyped Vista 7 for current delays while also announcing vapourware. Regarding the latest vapourware (128-bit pipe dream), Carla had this to say and Mary Jo Foley seems to be getting cold feet now that Steve Ballmer admits Vista 7 won't sell.

Ballmer: Testers didn't ring Vista warning bells; Could the same happen with Windows 7



[...]

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has done his best over the past year-plus to try to dampen expectations around Windows 7. He’s doing it again this week during his pre-launch European tour, telling press, analysts and others there that he doesn’t expect Windows 7 to provide a sudden and miraculous boost to the PC market.

But I’m more intrigued by a related comment Ballmer made, as I’ve thought about this very scenario myself in recent months. Ballmer pointed to Vista as an example that tester feedback may not always be the best measure of the success of a new operating system release. From an October 7 Bloomberg story:
“’The test feedback (on Windows 7) has been good, but the test feedback on Vista was good,’ Ballmer, 53, said in an interview last week. ‘I am optimistic, but the proof will be in the pudding.’”
It feels like a long time ago when testers were assessing the many Longhorn/Vista builds that Microsoft issued both before and after the “reset” in 2004. Before the reset, Microsoft officials heard from testers that there were some deep-seated problems with its next planned version of Windows. As a result, the Windows team went back to the drawing board and rejiggered it. Then there were lots more builds. And finally, in the fall of 2006, Microsoft released Vista to manufacturing.


Exactly. As we've repeated endlessly for almost a year, everything about Vista 7 is eerily similar to Windows Vista's timeline. Average consumers with average computers have not tried Vista 7 yet. The hype is artificial and often paid for.

Vista 7 starts now

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