Re: Windows 98

[Mitch Stone <mstone@vc.net>]

  In reply to Luc-Etienne Brachotte's message sent 11/26/97 7:21 AM:
  
  >A question to the list members living in the USA :
  >
  >In France, I have read on 2 or 3 PC magazines that next version of
  >Windows (97 or 98) was ready for October 31, 1997 (yes, no mistake), but
  >a bunch of OEMs asked Microsoft to delay the shipping to february or
  >mars 1998, so they will be able to make more margins with the
  >end-of-the-year sales.
  >
  >Have you heard the same, or is it, as I suspect, still disinformation ?
  >
  >BTW, thereafter Windows 98 seems to be for second half of 1998.
  
  This is essentially correct.
  
  The OEM's need about five months to get new products into the pipeline, 
  which means that the Christmas season begins to ramp up for them in 
  August. When it became obvious that "Memphis" was not going to ship by 
  then, they pleaded with Microsoft to hold off until early '98. Then the 
  betas arrived this past summer with even more than Microsoft's usual 
  quota of bugs.
  
  As the ship date slipped quietly to mid-98, Microsoft offered the lame 
  excuse that the delay resulted from the need to design separate 
  installers for Windows 95 and Windows 3.x. (Obviously, it takes Microsoft 
  six months to design an installer.) The truth, of course, is that Win98 
  is a mess and the OEMs are becoming jaded by the lack of anything really 
  new and exciting in it to sell.
  
      Mitch Stone
  +---
      We have no intention of shipping another bloated OS and shoving
      it down the throats of our users.
                           -- Microsoft vice president Paul Maritz
  
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