14 DAY TRIAL // Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer called the latest Windows client, Windows Vista, "a work in progress," at the Microsoft 2008 Most Valuable Professional Global Summit in Seattle, on April 17, 2008. But even if the statement has different connotations, and can be interpreted in more ways than one, the truth of the matter is that indeed Microsoft is still hammering away at Windows Vista. Yes, Vista was released to manufacturing back in 2006, and has hit the shelves over a year ago, with Service Pack 1 becoming widely available since March 18. But just because Vista carries a label such as RTM or SP1 does not imply that the operating system is finalized.
"Seriously, a very important piece of work, and I think we did a lot of things right, and I think we have a lot of things we need to learn from," Ballmer stated. In fact the best proof that Vista is still a work in progress is the recent release of Service Pack 1 on March 18, 2008 on Windows Update and the Download Center, with SP1 delivered in all the 36 languages supported by Vista as of April 15, and with automatic distribution in the works. But even before the service pack, Microsoft release performance, reliability, stability and compatibility update via WU.
By any measure, Microsoft is constantly working on its Windows operating systems. Vista is a work in progress, but so is Windows XP. Vista's successor is next in line to get its own service pack update. XP SP3 is currently in the final stages of baking, and is reportedly set for availability on April 29. But no Windows platform is as much a work in progress as Windows 7. Ballmer reinstated Microsoft's commitment to not repeat the 5-year gap between XP and Vista.
"Certainly, you never want to let five years go between releases. And we just sort of kiss that stone and move on, because it turns out many things become problematic when you have those long release cycles. The design point, what you should be targeting, we can never let that happen again. We had some things that we can't just set the dial back that I think people wish we could," Ballmer added.
Microsoft's CEO also admitted the fact that Vista is bloated in comparison with XP. And while the company is working on MinWin, the reduced core of the next iteration of Windows, Ballmer explained that Vista is going to remain bigger than XP and that the same will be valid for Windows 7.
"We have to make sure it doesn't get bigger still, and that the performance, and the battery and the compatibility we're driving on the things that we need to drive hard to improve. And yet we did take some important big steps forward with Vista," he said.
Ballmer also addressed the issue of Vista adoption vs. customers that choose to stick with XP and ride it out for all it's got. "We have some customers, a lot of customers using Vista, a lot of customers, and we have a lot of customers that are choosing to stay with Windows XP, and as long as those are both important options, we will be sensitive, and we will listen, and we will hear that. I got a piece of mail from a customer the other day that talked about not being able to get XP anymore, and we responded, XP is still available. And I know we're going to continue to get feedback from people on how long XP should be available. We've got some opinions on that. We've expressed our views. I'm always interested in hearing from you on these and other issues. So the desktop business, it's our heart, it's our soul, we continue to drive forward from this foundation," Ballmer revealed.