There has been a ton of hot air circulating about a spurious claim that Microsoft is planning to rewrite “up to 60%” of Vista before release, hence the retail release delayed until 2007. Scoble jumped all over this immediately, denying everything and being hugely defensive – as you would. Not that it makes a jot of difference, but I fully agree that if there was a 60% rewrite underway then a) November release is never going to happen, and b) I wouldn’t touch the OS with a 10 foot barge pole.
A total random guess, but maybe the 60% number was misinterpreted? Maybe something like 60% of the code had bugs or performance issues somewhere in it? After my initial foray into the last release of Vista, I could believe that.
Whatever the case, I know the sheer horror that abounds in the last few weeks and months before releasing a piece of software. Nothing within an order of magnitude of Vista, but if those guys have bugs, I know first hand the sort of hacks and nasty workarounds they may be implementing to get the thing to behave. I’m guessing this is the reason that a lot of technical users recite the mantra: “not until service pack 2″, when considering a new Microsoft OS.
Mini Microsoft has a far more interesting (and vitriolic) take on the latest Vista delay.
