Microsoft Vista Service Pack Near Beta

As a follow-up to his email sent to Microsoft execs about Vista issues, Alec Saunders says: "Coincident with my note to Microsoft about Windows Vista quality yesterday, Microsoft let it be known that Vista SP1 would be going into beta in a couple of weeks, and surprise surprise, a substantial focus is on quality."

"Following the email I sent, two Microsoft senior execs responded yesterday — Steven Sinofsky who runs with the Windows platform organization, and Jeff Raikes, President of the Business Division. Among the many things in Raikes' mails was a question about how well I liked Office 2007, a product that I absolutely love. When I told him that, he observed that Sinofsky was the VP in charge of shipping Office 2007, and that he was applying many of the same methodologies to Windows Vista."

"Sinofsky gently chided me for having rose colored glasses, observing that PnP in Windows 95 routinely fried his network cards. Perhaps, he was saying, Windows Vista isn't as bad as I've described it. Nonetheless, he acknowledged that two key areas of focus for his team right now are application compatibility, and the video subsystem. Many of the Windows updates that go out are focused on these two areas, and that seems to be a good chunk of the focus in SP1 as well."

"Time will tell. As John McKinley pointed out, this is a franchise issue for them. They have to get it right."