Not serious about the release cycle? Lost its way among the rest of the world? Yes, you might say that about Microsoft right now. The company can’t seem to get any release right, much less on time.

Let’s look at recent history.

Windows Vista is a pig, that doesn’t do nearly what was originally promised, uses a great deal of memory, yet, unless you get the 64bit version, cannot really get enough memory to become quick enough to get out of its own way. The poor attempts at a first service pack have resulted in some problems arising from the ‘repair’, that are worse than the original problems.

Windows Home Server was the darling of the press for a few weeks, until the nasty bug affecting changes done remotely from connected machines was discovered. Wait a minute…isn’t that the reason to have a server? It was the last time I looked. Oh, and Microsoft says it will try to get a fix for the product by June. Certainly sounds like a priority project, yet the public is encouraged to continue purchasing the product.

To top all of this off, we have the powers that be at Microsoft trying to bully all other voting parties into supporting their new ’standard’ for document interchange. The formats are not really open, and through all the double-talk it seems that Microsoft doesn’t wish to release the full specifications, yet wants others to use the standards as if they were open. Who is this company kidding?

As an aside, a close look at the company finds its head, Steve Ballmer, looking more like a candidate for lithium treatment with each public appearance.

With all of this how is it anything really newsworthy when the company announces that ‘7′ might not ship in 2010? I think anyone above the level of cretin had this figured out already. I would have bet that no matter what the progress on the product, it would not be released in 2010, simply because Ballmer and company have decided that enough copies of Vista have not been sold.

Dealing with press releases of Microsoft is not an easy task. One has to take so many factors into account - possible truth, news from the inside, FUD, and current sales of shipping products. It is something better left to those with Ouija board experience.

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Tags: windows 7, vista, windows home server, fud, steve ballmer