How can you release something to manufacturing, when it’s not ready to be released it to manufacturing Microsoft?
Just how stupid does Microsoft think we are? Well, I guess we must be pretty stupid, because Microsoft comes right out and tells us that it’s RTMing (release to manufacturing) Vista SP1 on February 4th, except that if you read further down in the announcement letter, Microsoft says it’s not really releasing it for another six weeks.
Say what?
I quote from the Microsoft Corporate VP of Windows Product Management, Mike Nash’s public letter of February 4th , “Today we are excited to announce that we have released Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista to manufacturing (RTM) for our first set of languages (English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese).”
So far, so good. And, you can read all about how wonderful, simply wonderful, Vista SP1 is both in his letter and in hundreds of follow-up news postings.
But, what’s this, nine paragraphs down? “We are going to stage our rollout of SP1 for current Windows Vista users to be approximately concurrent with the availability of Windows Vista SP1 on new PCs and in stores.” And, what does that mean?
It means, “In mid-March, we will release Windows Vista SP1 to Windows Update (in English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese) and to the download center on microsoft.com.” Maybe it’s just me, but mid-March doesn’t sound like February 4th to me? And, for those many users who have blind faith in their computers, “In mid-April, we will begin delivering Windows Vista SP1 to Windows Vista customers who have chosen to have updates downloaded automatically.”