Windows Vista Arriving on November 30, 2006
2006-11-29


Five years, three months and five days after Windows XP made its debut, it is time for Microsoft's biggest release in the Windows series which started around 20 years ago.


Microsoft has set November 30 as the release date for Vista (and Office 2007) to business customers and January 30, 2007 as the date for the official launch to consumers and The World At Large.

Windows is Microsoft's biggest product, the primary software used to run more than 90 percent of the world's personal computers. The PC Windows division was responsible for more than $10 billion of Microsoft's profit last year. The current version, Windows XP, was released in October 2001.

Microsoft executives have called Windows Vista the biggest improvement in the program since Windows 95. The operating system comes with a glossy new look, fast file-searching, performance improvements and a series of additional features.

For some PC users, those features will require major hardware upgrades. For example, Microsoft recommends a full gigabyte of main memory for the "premium" Vista experience, including the higher-quality "Windows Aero" desktop interface.


"I feel very confident that customers are far better off by using Windows Vista than they are with anything that we've released before," Microsoft's Allchin said, predicting that both the severity and number of security flaws will decrease.

Security problems in Windows XP contributed to the delays in Windows Vista, requiring the company to temporarily divert programmers to work on a major XP update.

But even with the long development cycle, the Windows Vista destined for store shelves and PC hard drives isn't what Bill Gates had in mind when he first unveiled the operating system. In 2004, for example, Microsoft put off plans for an ambitious file system, dubbed WinFS, to try to get the operating system out more quickly.


Here's Windows Vista's retail prices:

Vista Home Basic: $199 ($99.95 upgrade)
Vista Home Premium: $239 ($159 upgrade)
Vista Business: $299 ($199 upgrade)
Vista Ultimate: $399 ($259 upgrade)

Office 2007 is assumed to have retail prices of between $149 for the student edition and $679 for an ultimate package.


Source: Yahoo! News


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