Microsoft has announced that Windows Vista launch is delayed once again to January 2007. Windows Chief Jim Allchin said that some complications will force few PC vendors to wait till Jan 07 whereas some will get it as early as Nov 06. To avoid this fiasco Microsoft has delayed the launch till January 2007. The delay would likely hurt retail PC vendors the most, said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD Techworld. Dell, which sells most of its PCs directly, could probably handle a delay of a few weeks without too much trouble. Hewlett-Packard and Gateway, on the other hand, have to have their PCs ready for retail partners weeks ahead of when they will actually go on sale, and can't change gears as quickly, he said.

Allchin said some of the additional time was for ensuring security levels, and the company is also working on ironing out usability issues.

"We're trying to crank up the security level higher than ever," Allchin said. "This came down to a few weeks. We're trying to do the responsible thing here."

Microsoft is planning to launch a broader test version of Vista next quarter which will be tested by 2 million people.
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