More Vista views

Following the seriously well-hyped release of its Windows Vista Release Candidate 1 last week, Microsoft Corporation has announced a few more details on the program and on RC1’s availability for broader customer and partner testing.

Along with the official announcement of more details came the official announcement of Vista software prices. The prices had been leaked on the Microsoft Canada website last Friday but were hurriedly pulled. No matter: The posted prices were soon posted by any number of website reporters and bloggers, including the Chump.

Today’s posted suggested retail prices are actually a little bit higher than those circulating online. Apparently, the Canadian website (and/or those overenthusiastic writers who were alerted to the story first) reported the figures as in Canadian dollars when they were seemingly the American numbers. In any event, the official official suggested prices are now at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/editions/business.mspx.

The latest Microsoft information also states that the final availability of Windows Vista is currently targeted for volume license customers in November 2006 and for general availability in January 2007.

Code for the RC1 version was made available to some Windows Vista Customer Preview Program participants this week, with more to follow in the next week. Some consumer scenarios enabled by Windows Vista are also available for testing, and Microsoft is currently working with getting more international testers involved.

The review program has also been opened to new enrollment, with a stated goal of making Windows Vista RC1 available to over five million customers worldwide. If interested, subscribers can download RC1 from the MSDN and TechNet Web sites. Coming soon are versions to be distributed in DVD format along with technology publications at the newsstand.

Declared Mike Sievert, corporate vice president for Windows Client Marketing at Microsoft: “The time to prepare for Windows Vista has arrived.”

Perhaps most importantly for individual users, Microsoft has promised that the Windows XP hardware issue, i.e. customers being forced to make tradeoffs in features and functionality because Windows XP editions were aligned with specific hardware types, Vista customers have been promised “the ability to make choices between editions based on the valuable features they desire, which are now available as standard features of mainstream editions.” Specifically speaking, 64-bit support, tablet PC functions, and touch technology are standard features of the Vista Home Premium and Vista Business software.