You Cannot Make a Baby in 1 Month with 9 Wives

A highly respected person in this industry once told me that you cannot create a baby in one month with nine wives. I wrote that saying down and I now keep it in my wallet. No matter how big you are and no matter how many resources you have you simply cannot force a product launch by throwing more resources at it.

For Microsoft it seems no matter how much money, engineers, resources, or computers they throw at a problem they cannot get Windows Vista to launch on time. To be honest, I’m not sure what the deal is, I have been testing the beta versions and I love where it’s going – but it’s just not happening fast enough. Perhaps Microsoft is holding out because they want the experience to be absolutely perfect – or perhaps they just missed deadlines. Either way there are issues with Media Center extensions including the multi-display tool features, HDTV cable card recording, and a few more.

There is nothing wrong with launching a product until it’s perfect – but we all know that bugs will appear no matter how many engineers they have creating it. I would argue that the more resources that they continue to throw at Vista the longer it will be delayed. They need to cut to the fat, fast, and focus on making the core product near perfect.

Some people say that AMD should be upset because they have been sitting on these fantastic 64-bit optimizations on desktop and notebooks for a very long time without a mainstream stage to showcase them. Someone asked me if the delay will have an effect on 32 bit product demand vs 64. The short answer is people don’t seem to care about 64-bit at the moment - but it’s safe to say they will when Vista does finally launch. Luckily for AMD their processors perform well in both 64-bit and 32-bit applications.

Could the delay of Vista effect overall industry sales? It may affect fourth quarter mainstream sales somewhat (not much), but certainly it will not effect the high end market. In fact, I think the delay is great for the enthusiasts because they are not going to hold their breath waiting for Vista. We are seeing customer purchasing Vista ready PCs now with plans to upgrade their OS later.

The Vista delay will give Intel and AMD an opportunity to launch their new hardware in the fall without worrying about nuisance software bugs - and when they launch their new hardware we will see a larger spike in sales regardless of Vista's delay.

I am optimistic that there will be three major spikes in sales over a fairly short period of time – we are currently in the middle of one of those spikes. How this affects the mainstream is anyone’s guess, but if this is any indication, the gaming/enthusiast market tends to influence the mainstream markets.

Some are speculating that the Vista delay means more business for Apple. Sorry guys, but Vista being delayed won't increase Apple's sales - Apple will increase Apple's sales with the help of Intel. If people want an Apple they will buy one - but those who understand the built-in entertainment and gaming experience that Vista offers may decide that Apple is not for them. So perhaps for every person who switches there will be another who switches back once Vista is launched.

Make no mistake, Vista is going to be a killer operating system and there’s no doubt in my mind that it will create huge hardware demands in the way of storage, graphics, memory, and processing. I see storage as king in Vista, so for companies like Seagate, Western Digital, Hitachi GST and Samsung the delay of Vista means their business will remain status quo regular growth – but when Vista comes out they should experience major growth; as in multiple drives and larger capacities per PC. With the advancement of HDTV recording, PC gaming, video, music, and all the built-in entertainment features Vista is going to be a storage pig.

This leads me into an article that I wrote for CPU Magazine which will appear in the upcoming issue. It’s about storage, and the various dynamics between the big storage companies. I think it will make for an interesting read, make sure you check back here often.