The launch of the consumer version of Windows Vista, Microsoft"s new operating system, could be pushed back past the stated January launch date, Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer said today.
The operating system was due to be launched this year but in March the company said it wouldn"t get broad release until January 2007. Ballmer said Wednesday that the planned January launch may slip further based on feedback from a beta release program and the product road-maps of hardware vendors.
"We think we are on track for shipping early in the year. We"ve talked about the month, but we get a chance to critically assess all of the feedback we"ll get from this beta release then confirm or move [the launch date] a few weeks," he said at a news conference in Tokyo.
As Neowin reported at the start of the month, research group Gartner predicted something similar to this was going to happen based on Microsoft"s past performance with Windows release dates.