Exclusive: Microsoft Still Plans October 2006 Vista Release

http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/...182/93182.html

According to sources at Microsoft, the company plans to ship Windows Vista Release Candidate 1
(RC1) in early September. More important, perhaps, is that Microsoft still plans to release
Vista to manufacturing by the end of October as previously planned, defying rumors that the
company would delay Vista yet again.
Although I'm not at liberty to divulge the full contents of the message, Microsoft has placed
build 5520 into escrow as the RC1 of Vista. This build will be released to testers and the
public after the Labor Day holiday in the United States, which falls this year on September 4.
Currently, Microsoft expects to ship RC1 on or after September 7.

Meanwhile, the release to manufacturing (RTM), or final, version of Vista is set for a
September 2006 escrow and final release on or before October 25. We can expect a Longhorn
Server Beta 3 release in first quarter 2007, an RC2 release in second quarter 2007, and the
final release in the second half of 2007.

http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/...181/93181.html

OneStat: Windows Continues to Dominate
Microsoft's next-generation OS, Windows Vista, continues to be horribly late, but that hasn't
stopped the current version, Windows XP, from dominating the OS market. Web analytics company
OneStat.com says that XP is responsible for almost 87 percent of all Web usage, while all
Windows versions combined account for 97 percent of Web usage.


"Microsoft's Windows dominates the operating system market with a global usage share of 96.97
percent," OneStat.com reports. "The leading operating system on the Web is Microsoft's Windows
XP with a global usage share of 86.80 percent. Microsoft's Windows 2000 has a global usage
share of 6.09 percent and is the second most popular OS on the Web."


You read that right. Windows 2000 is the second most often used OS on the Web, with almost
three times the usage share of all Macintosh versions combined. During an event keynote last
week, Apple CEO Steve Jobs was quick to point out that Mac OS X was "gaining market share," but
Apple has made only concrete gains in very specific markets, such as "retail sales of notebook
computers in the US." In reality, Mac OS X usage is still below 2.5 percent worldwide. Even the
8-year-old Windows 98, with 2.68 percent of the market, accounts for more users than OS X does.


Many had expected Apple's recent successes with the dominant iPod MP3 player and the move to
Macs that use Intel chips to increase the company's share of the OS market. That hasn't
happened yet, although it still could: With Vista not scheduled for general availability until
early 2007, Apple has an opening during which it can sell Mac OS X systems to Windows converts
while pushing its next-generation OS, code-named Leopard.


According to OneStat.com, the following are the most frequently used OSs on the Web in the
world:


1. Windows XP - 86.80 percent
2. Windows 2000 - 6.09 percent
3. Windows 98 - 2.68 percent
4. Macintosh/ Macintosh Power PC - 2.47 percent
5. Windows Me - 1.09 percent
6. Linux - 0.36 percent
7. Windows NT - 0.24 percent



--
Michael
______
"The trouble ain't that there is too many fools,
but that the lightning ain't distributed right."
- Mark Twain