Oops... Vista SP1 date 'slips out': Film at 11.
As I've said in the last couple of posts I've been in Athens with other evangelists looking at Longhorn. On Friday morning one of the guys came in saying Intel's CEO has given a date for Vista SP1. So I've been trying to find out what was said. Here's a summary.
We've been saying
- Windows Server Longhorn and Windows Vista share a lot of code.
- Windows Server Longhorn is about to go into beta 3, and we expect it to ship by the end of the year
Paul Otellini said he expected Vista deployment will begin to take place in earnest in the fourth quarter, "When the service pack for Vista comes out around October/November."
So what has he confirmed ? That there will be a service pack (I don't think we ever said Vista would go thought it's life without one) ? Given the overlap between Vista and Longhorn server the best guess for Vista SP1 is 'roughly the same time as Longhorn' - was that a surprise ? Not to anyone who's looked at Longhorn. Has Paul O leaked a ship date for Longhorn ? Not really: take your guess for the release of Beta 3, add your guess for the duration of Beta 3 and a couple of release candidates and "around October/November" would be in the middle of the range. But remember the more complex the work, the easier it is to under-estimate how long it will take.