No Vista Service Pack Coming - Yeah Right

May 12, 2007

The head of Intel speculated on a call a few weeks ago that SP1 for Vista would be out in October or November, but Michael Sievert a Marketing VP at Microsoft said there are currently no plans for a service pack for Vista. Obviously both parties have their own agenda and will tell the press whatever fits their agenda best. Working at a software development company for almost nine years and going through several different major releases during that time I can say that based on the problems seen with Vista not only are their plans for a service pack, but they have been working on the service pack before 2007 started.

When software is released there are a number of factors that go into the release date, while we would all like to think as consumers that it is set by when the software is stable, all testing that can be done is done, and everyone involved gets into a room and like a Space Shuttle launch they are all asked if they are a go, and everything is great, that doesn't really happen. When software is being developed the marketing engine is running full steam the previous suite has reached the end of its usefulness for any number of reasons so they hype the new release, the marketing people and sales folks are telling customers when to expect the next release and how wonderful it is going to be, partners get dates and forecast based on that, Wall St. gets hint of it (if the company is public), and then the release date slips, what was originally touted to be an April release becomes a late May early June date, these dates are padded and the real (internal) target is sooner but they know how this game is played and how likely they are to miss that date so they give themselves some extra time, and then the middle of June goes by, now customers, suppliers, partners are all getting anxious, testing has gone well into high gear, people don't go home for days, food is brought in, you see peoples wives and kids walking the halls headed to Daddy's office and they look worried, very difficult meetings take place with people who have had too much coffee and not enough sleep, voices are raised, language gets very colorful, the developers are totally isolated, marketing people stop answering their phones, requests for comment are ignored, and then it happens, someone very high up decides, and in a meeting it is stated "we are going to do a code freeze on X day and I don't care if you have to hire 100 developers I want this at manufacturing by the end of next week and CD's being pressed or YOU ARE FIRED!!!" And guess what, everyone hates it, but they love it too, finally the other shoe has dropped and while everyone will be agitated for the next week, when that code freeze happens and they burn that golden CD champaign flows and is accompanied by greasy pizza, and people actually smile and talk to one another, but there is always a few very high level people who leave the party a little early or slip into an empty conference room, and guess what they are doing? They are in with the head of development and some senior management discussing service pack 1.

Maybe my story is a little over the top, but trust me, service pack 1 for Vista is coming and anyone that tells you its not either doesn't know or doesn't want you to know.

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | System Engineer | 1E Inc.

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