Microsoft Announces Windows Vista Delays Until 2007

Microsoft has delayed the launch of Vista until January 2007. The company still plans to release Vista to business partners through its volume licensing programme in November 2006 but PCs with Vista pre-installed will not be available until the following year.

A company spokesperson says they wanted to give consumers a firm date for when Vista would be broadly available. My guess is that they want to avoid the Xbox 360 situation, although I do not see Vista going up on ebay for $10,000 as some 360s did.

While this isn't really a surprise to the consumer world, retailers will not be very happy that Microsoft didn't have Vista ready for the 2006 holiday season for those anxious early adapters. Although builds are available through the not so legitimate channels if you are so inclined.

I think the real question in all of this is; Will this delay erode the demand for Vista?