The long march to Windows Vista is finally over. Wednesday morning Microsoft released the operating system to manufacturing, and an hour later it told the press that business would have Vista "on or before" November 30, the last possible day for Microsoft to make its latest schedule. Consumers will get it January 30.

Microsoft had immediately started supplying OEMs with the gold code, according to Microsoft's Jim Allchin, co-president of its Platforms & Services Division.

It is, Allchin said, "rock solid."

PC makers, device makers and ISVs now have to finalize their equipment and software. Corporations will have to test and qualify it too. White box makers won't have the software on their machines before January 30.

Allchin, who will retire in January, said Microsoft had made "big claims" for Vista, and he believes it will deliver. Although it is the most tested OS ever produced, Allchin admitted that there will still be security issues because of the escalating number of threats. "We can't get perfection," he said, but claimed that user will be more secure with Vista than with XP.

It is, he said, "the most secure operating system available and certainly the most secure operating system we've ever shipped." Vulnerabilities are reportedly harder to leverage.

To help push Vista's fast adoption, Microsoft has an application compatibility kit available now rather than months later like XP. Deployment is supposed to be much easier than previous operating systems.

Only 14% of CIOs intend to upgrade to Vista next year, according to a Merrill Lynch CIO survey, 15% to Office 2007. The brokerage says "There is some hesitation among respondents to upgrade in '08, with an increase in the percentage of CIOs waiting for clarity."

Vista is shipping initially in five languages. In fact, Allchin said, the French, Spanish and Japanese versions were finalized before the English. By January Microsoft expects to have 18 language versions, 32 a hundred days after that and when done 100.

Microsoft has booked rooms in New York to formally announce Vista, Office 2007, Exchange Server 2007 on November 30 and has gotten Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer an airline ticket.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has reversed its position on how many times a boxed version of Vista can be moved to a different computer. A month ago it said once. Now pressure has forced it to revert to XP's unlimited terms provided consumers remove it from any other machines.

Copyright (c) 2006 Client Server News.