The news that Vista slipped again left me yawning, which is why I went all day before commenting on it. After reading the Mini-Microsoft take though, I looked again. Here's the basic info:

Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system has been beset with another delay. After clearly pinpointing the holiday season of 2006 for launch, the company has now revised their primary launch period to 2007.

Jim Allchin, co-president of Microsoft's Platforms & Services Division, told analysts that the target time has been bumped to January 2007 for all consumer versions of Windows. He also said that editions aimed at business users would be available as early as November through volume licensing programs.

Like I said, I yawned at that this morning. But here's Mini-Microsoft on the case:

I was upset at missing the back-to-school market. Now we're missing the holiday sales market. All of those laptops and PCs are going to have XP on it. What percentage will upgrade to Vista? Well, I guess that's the little dream that I need to give up on. Vista's deployment is going to come from people buying CPUs with the OS pre-installed, not dancing down the CompUSA aisle as they clutch that boxed version of Vista to their loving chest. So not only did we miss last year's opportunity, we're missing this year's opportunity, too. With the convergence of high-tech media, this holiday season would have been an explosive nodal point to get Vista out for a compounded effect.

It's certainly a big loss of sales at a crucial time of year, and most of the people buying PC's then won't get on Vista for a few years - not until they buy another PC down the road.

So think about that - they delayed by a few weeks into January, supposedly to lock down some security issues. Hmm. It's March now. You're telling me that they can see a 2-4 week delay that clearly right now? I don't think so. I won't be at all surprised if this small delay turns into 6-9 months, or even more.

Check out the Channel 9 thread.