As for your point sometimes I wonder if someone at MS really does just wake up and make a decision. As of today now we have this story…

http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2008/02/11/windows-vista-sp1-availability-for-technical-customers.aspx

I realize it sounds a bit negative saying this but MS these days just doesn’t have much of a feel of that of a professional company. All of these are dates that should have been planned out and thought through yet it looks like they’re just making decisions on the fly. It’s not a huge issue in that of these release dates being planned better but I saw the same thing before Vista’s release and afterward with in some cases it looked pretty obvious some of the Vista patches were not tested well whatsoever…perhaps this goes back to the whole shortage of good IT/computer science people in the IT world that has been bandied about for a few years now.

You’re criticizing other news sites for having flimsy information but yet you state the following…

“I am quite sure the release date of the RTM was known long before internally.”

What’s the difference between you being quite sure about a knowledge of a release date and these others sites having knowledge of release dates? If you don’t have any kind of inside info don’t you think you’re sounding a little hypocritical.

I’ll certainly admit that unless I’m missing something that was posted on bink it seems disappointing for them to have posted about the Vista SP1 release dates just a few days before this one. It read as if they had never heard of any dates before. That is disappointing to see…do they read their own news and maybe question what might be right? All they needed to do was add a few comments that questions the info. It simply might have been old info…it’s not like MS doesn’t routinely push back major releases when related to OS’s.

For what it’s worth leading off of this whole topic I think MS is too comfortable with the corporate side of their customers. They have those juicy(for them) volume licenses that allows them to collect their money even when they release OS’s that many don’t want to or can’t upgrade to. It’s automatic money for them.

If we ever see any competition in the business world that can challenge MS, then you might see them get back to seeming to be more professional. Right now though Linux with servers and Apple in consumers’ homes are the only areas challenging MS. Apple uses rumors for hype though they won’t admit it and what you’re seeing is them merely using what has worked for Apple since Apple has actually started taking marketshare away from MS at the consumer level.