Microsoft has stubbornly refused to announce a timetable for Vista's first major update, but one of its main partners, Intel had no problem spilling it.
Intel CEO Paul Otellini was asked how Vista sales would impact his company's 2007 sales projections. Otellini began his answer with the by-now-standard explanation that enterprises haven't jumped to the new operating system.
"Most companies will act like Intel,"he said. "They're doing some pilots and testing today. But the [Vista] deployment [in enterprises] will actually happen when the Service Pack gets released in the fourth quarter time frame, probably the October-November time frame".
Microsoft has confirmed that Vista SP1 is in the works, but refused to name a release date. Not even after Intel's leak. "It's too early to provide any firm date range for SP1's delivery,"a company spokeswoman said today. "We will continue to take customer feedback from programs like the TAP [Technology Adoption Program], and will ultimately determine an official delivery date as the service pack is nearer to completion."
Microsoft does publish the "Windows Service Pack Road Map" on its Web site, but Vista is not represented, and future service packs for currently-supported OSes such as Windows XP are broadly drawn by naming a half-year span, not a month or quarter.
