Vista Launch Date Remains the Same, Says Microsoft

A few days ago several rumors started making their rounds online announcing that Microsoft is planning an early release of the new Vista operating system, which could be available as of July. However, company officials made everything clear on this matter and Amitabh Shrivastava, corporate vice president of the Windows core operating system development division, announced that the final release of Vista will be made available just in time for the 2006 holiday season and not sooner. Until then, Microsoft will release several CTPs (community technology previews), which will give users a better perspective of the final product than the previous CTP edition published last July.

The statement was made by Shrivastava during the first of what are to be regularly scheduled conference calls, which will give users an update on the progress of Windows Vista.

Just to make sure, the Microsoft representative mentioned three times during this conference that Vista is set to be released to manufacturing in the middle of next year, which means it will be installed first on computers sold during the holiday shopping season.

The next CTP edition of Vista should be available early next year, and according to Shrivastava, the team was accelerating development in order to have most features code-complete by the end of the year.