Northwood is a particular scary estate in the Kirby area of Liverpool - The Wolf of Kabul
According to Vole's Vista operating system supremeo, Jim Allchin, Vista should hit the shops the day he retires. Fortunately for Microsoft customers his retirement day will be a matter of months not years.
As it stands Vista and Allchin will leave the Redmond Volehill about Christmas. Already that is a bit late, as Microsoft had been talking about October or November. However Allchin is hinting that Vista might not be finished when he goes.
Apparently what will hold back Vista will be "quality issues". Allchin is not saying that he thinks that any quality issues will come up, but he said he will slip the product if any appear.
So far Microsoft has completed internal development of Vista and the next Vista test release will come out sometime before March.
Of course if the product is late, Allchin will be safely in retirement when the much awaited product is finally delivered and probably will not care. Unless his retirement present is a Vista laptop.
You can read more of what Allchin said at Techworld. µ