« Products of the Week podcast | Main | BT talks up web calls »
Now Microsoft delays Office 2007
Hot on the heels of delaying Windows Vista, Microsoft today admitted that its Office 2007 software is also being pushed backed to next year.
In many ways this is no great surprise, but it's another blow for consumers and retailers. In the UK, the biggest two points for people to invest in new machines is September, to coincide with school and university terms, and Christmas.
Talking with one manufacturer earlier today, they said Microsoft floated the delay as a possibility past them a fortnight ago, but held off announcing it.
Both manufacturers and retailers are pushing Microsoft to offer backwards upgrades, he added, so that anyone who buys an XP machine in the run up to Christmas can get a free upgrade to Vista.
The problem many face though is that they fine tune and tweak their systems for Vista - and then there's the issue of driver compatibility with peripherals - and so are reluctant to ship laptops or PCs that then need an OS upgrade within months. It is also too difficult an upgrade for many consumers, which means retailers then need to put a program in place.
According to one story we read today, up to 60 per cent of Vista's code has to be rewritten, and although an interesting article, there's nothing in it to back up that figure. But we've put the question to Microsoft, and await its answer.
Just to be clear, there is no change to the RTM date of 2007 Office. Our business customers are still on track to get 2007 Office in October this year. The decision to align with Vista in retail and OEM has to do with simplifying the launch in the channel. This is a launch timing decision and not a product delay. We are still on track for beta 2 as well.
Posted by Darren Strange | March 24, 2006 8:05 PM
The story about rewritting 60% of Windows' source code is completely 100% false.
Posted by Robert Scoble | March 24, 2006 10:02 PM
Both the comments above are from Microsoft employees.
As I said in the blog, we had to ask about whether or not the story was correct, but had our doubts about 60% of the code needing rewriting.
We discussed it in the office, and could see 60% of an area of the code needing rewriting, but not 60% of all the code. Microsoft simply couldn't hit its new deadline for Vista if that were the case.
As for Office 2007 being realigned to coincide with Vista rather than delayed - well sorry, but that's spin. If consumers are getting it a couple of months after it was originally due, then it's delayed.
Darren Strange, who looks after Office in the UK, has commented further in our news story here: www.pcw.co.uk/2152721
Posted by Rob Jones | March 25, 2006 2:12 PM