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Microsoft is arguably king of the delayed product launch. From older versions of Windows to the latest Office and Vista releases, things often come out much later than was first scheduled. But Steve Ballmer has assured the world there will never again be as much of a wait as there was (and is) between Windows XP and Vista.

Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive, made this comment at a conference. "I think it's probably important for me to tell our partners that, rest assured, we will never have a gap between Windows releases as long as the one between XP and Windows Vista," Ballmer said, as reported by USA Today. "Count on it. I can go through the history of how we got through here, but just count on it. We will never have this kind of gap again."

Vista's release was most recently pushed back into January, which means Microsoft will miss the holiday season. A lot of vendors were upset to lose those Christmas sales, and many software and hardware manufacturers were also displeased. Bill Gates has spoken up in defense of the delay.

"We got to get this absolutely right," Gates said. "If the feedback from the beta tests shows it is not ready for prime time, I'd be glad to delay it." According to USA Today, the Microsoft chairman thought "there was an 80% chance that Vista would be ready in January."

XP was released on October 25, 2001. Therefore, assuming Vista is released in January (or soon thereafter), Ballmer's promise means we'd see the next version of Windows before midyear of 2012. And so, for whatever that's worth, there it is.

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Doug is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest eBusiness news.