Poll: Is Windows 7's ship date immaterial to you?

When I saw a Microsoft Windows exec quoted this week as saying that Microsoft still is unwilling to go on record saying Win 7 will be ready in time for holiday 2009, I was more than a little incredulous. Hasn't the "we're protecting you for your own good" information-disclosure campaign around Windows gone on long enough?

I understand Microsoft doesn't want to repeat the slip-date madness in which it became entangled with Vista. I've heard execs repeat time and time again that the Windows team wants to eliminate overzealous expectations. And there's the pesky little matter that Microsoft doesn't want to totally kill the market for Vista by announcing Windows 7 will be released to manufacturing in the coming months.

I get it that somebody out there could find a true showstopper bug that derails Windows 7 from the fast track. And of course, Microsoft would much rather ship Windows 7 "months early" rather than even one day late.

But these caveats aside, enough with the gratuitous secrecy stuff. I genuinely thought CEO Steve Ballmer might use his Consumer Electronics Show (CES) pulpit this week to tell users: "We're confident enough at this point to tell you we are going to ship Wnndows 7 in calendar 2009" (instead of the "by early 2010" date that remains the official corporate line). But no.

After all, 2009 is the ship target the Softies have been whispering to enterprise customers  for months. Business users are being told by their reps that Windows 7 is on target to be released to manufacturing this summer. And Microsoft isn't denying a Tech ARP report that it is considering kicking off its Tech Guarantee free upgrade program for Windows 7 around July 1 of this year.

Windows 7 is, for all intents and purposes, done. It is now officially feature-complete. The seemingly one and only beta goes to the public January 9. After that, it's fit and finish Release Candidate time, followed by RTM.

Next, I began wondering if there could be any conceivable reason Microsoft --or any of its PC partners --  would decide to intentionally delay Windows 7's release?

Highly doubtful. Windows Vista is still seen by many of its own users (and others who haven't tried it, to be fair) as not up-to-snuff. You'd think Microsoft and its OEMs would love to get into users hands the next version, which has been getting high marks from many testers, even at the alpha stage of the game. Could cost-cutting lead the  launch-loving Softies to delay the delivery of Win 7? Could wanting to hold Win 7 back to time it with Office 14 result in a conscious delay? I just don't see it....

I put Mike Nash, Corporate VP of Windows Product Management, on the spot today during a phone conversation we had on January 8 around Microsoft's CES announcements. Most of his answers didn't surprise me as to why Microsoft is continuing to refrain from updating its ship-date target for Windows 7.

"In the past, we gave an answer (to the ship-date question) when we weren't sure about the answer," Nash said. "The thing that's diferent now is we aren't just going to make up an answer."

That sounds great... unless you are a customer -- small, mid-sized or enterprise-like -- trying to figure out what to buy when. I get e-mail queries from customers of all sizes all the time asking me when Windows 7 is likely to ship because they are trying to plan their purchases.

But Nash's claim that a differential of multiple months when it comes to a ship-date target doesn't matter to enterprise customers did surprise me. Nash said that Microsoft is continuing to guide enterprises to deploy, not skip, Vista, so they will be cognizant of which applications will and won't likely run on 7. Microsoft has maintained that most apps that work on Vista should work on Windows 7, but isn't promising apps that don't will somehow magically work with Windows 7.

"We need to get the ecosystem (of partners and customers) moved to Vista," Nash stated plainly.

Because evaluation/testing/deployment by enterprise users is a lengthy process, a difference of months, or even a calendar year, won't affect large users' Windows' buying plans, Nash said.

Nash's words seem to fly in the face of the questions that continue to flow into my inbox. So I'm curious:

[Poll=31]

No stuffing the ballot box. (Microsoft employees: Don't pull that virtual lever! Yes, I mean you!)

I'm interested in what you business users have to say: What's your take on Microsoft's information disclosure policy around Windows 7?