Joe Wilcox reports that Ballmer has finally admitted the obvious: Vista isn't done. The problem is, this admission came after SP1 shipped:

Today, in a speech to MVPs (Most Valuable Professionals), Microsoft's CEO acknowledged that "Windows Vista [is] a work in progress." As bad as that might sound, timing makes it worse. Ballmer's admission comes weeks after the formal release of Windows Vista Service Pack. And Vista's still not finished.

I have no idea what MS is doing with Windows 7, but here's what they ought to do: cut the team down to something small, on the order of 2 dozen people. Tell them to ignore Vista, and base their work on binary portability with XP. Don't give them access to the rest of MS; cut them off from the Borg and let them build something useful.

Sadly, that's not how it will go. I think MS is on the peak of the same cliff that IBM was staring over back in the late 80's, and the next few years are going to be very painful in Redmond.

Technorati Tags: microsoft, vista