Vista day looms tomorrow

ANALYSTS ARE are being invited to the release of Microsoft's long awaited Vista operating system and Office 2007 tomorrow.

There will be a bit of shin-dig somewhere swanky in New York and London tomorrow. It will be for businesses only and the rest of the unwashed riff-raff - including the INQ - will be kept outside.

Vista will be available for ordinary consumers on January 30, 2007, according to Microsoft co-president of platforms Jim Allchin. Then the marketing machine will switch into gear.

Allchin said the latest version was "rock solid" after the outfit began shipping it to computer programmers and manufacturers so they could tailor their gear to the system.

Microsoft has been criticised and its stock battered like a North Sea cod for delaying the release of Vista several times to further refine the system. It has also knocked out so much of the sexy stuff that critics consider it a bit too close to Windows XP to be worth a five-year wait. µ