Microsoft says Office opening on track
TORONTO -- Microsoft Corp.'s coming release of its new Office software remains on schedule for the end of the year, a senior executive said yesterday, despite remarks from the chief executive officer suggesting the company's Windows Vista operating system could face still further delay.
Vista has been delayed several times, most recently in March, when Microsoft announced that the release would miss this year's holiday shopping season. Market researcher Gartner has already gone on the record as saying it thinks Microsoft will miss the January deadline. Officially, Microsoft has stuck to its January target, though Bill Gates didn't mention a specific month when he announced Beta 2 on Tuesday. Meanwhile, CEO Steve Ballmer appeared to hedge his bets Wednesday at a Tokyo news conference.
Office 2007 -- the productivity software that includes word processing, spreadsheet and PowerPoint applications -- will be released by the end of the year, Antoine Leblond, vice-president of Office program management, said in an interview yesterday. The new version of Office will be optimized for machines running the Vista operating system.
Vista is targeted for release in January and Longhorn for the end of next year. But Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO, added a new wrinkle at a news conference in Tokyo on Tuesday, saying Vista could be delayed "a few weeks. . . .
"We are on track for shipping early in the year," he added.
Every delay is significant because the multibillion-dollar Windows franchise is so large that it drives global demand for personal computer hardware and other software. It is also the most lucrative unit within the Redmond, Wash., firm.
Rick Sherlund, an analyst at Goldman Sachs & Co., speculated this month that Vista, which initially was meant to be ready in 2004, may be delayed further into 2007.
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Vista has been delayed several times, most recently in March, when Microsoft announced that the release would miss this year's holiday shopping season. Market researcher Gartner has already gone on the record as saying it thinks Microsoft will miss the January deadline. Officially, Microsoft has stuck to its January target, though Bill Gates didn't mention a specific month when he announced Beta 2 on Tuesday. Meanwhile, CEO Steve Ballmer appeared to hedge his bets Wednesday at a Tokyo news conference.
Office 2007 -- the productivity software that includes word processing, spreadsheet and PowerPoint applications -- will be released by the end of the year, Antoine Leblond, vice-president of Office program management, said in an interview yesterday. The new version of Office will be optimized for machines running the Vista operating system.
Vista is targeted for release in January and Longhorn for the end of next year. But Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO, added a new wrinkle at a news conference in Tokyo on Tuesday, saying Vista could be delayed "a few weeks. . . .
"We are on track for shipping early in the year," he added.
Every delay is significant because the multibillion-dollar Windows franchise is so large that it drives global demand for personal computer hardware and other software. It is also the most lucrative unit within the Redmond, Wash., firm.
Rick Sherlund, an analyst at Goldman Sachs & Co., speculated this month that Vista, which initially was meant to be ready in 2004, may be delayed further into 2007.
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