Microsoft cannot ship Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) fast enough. The vast majority of firms that want to roll out the latest Windows operating system are likely to be holding back until this update ships, while those firms that have already taken the plunge will be hoping that any business-critical applications that currently work on the system will continue to work when SP1 is applied.

The release of SP1 early next year will certainly boost the number of firms deploying Vista. What is less clear is how large this increase will be. Firms that have rolled out new hardware that is not able to run Vista without a lot of puffing and blowing may well put off such a deployment until they have got the value out of their current investment. Other companies may also choose to wait until XP support is withdrawn, set for 2011, before moving to Vista. And if the clamour from corporate users is large enough, Microsoft could choose to extend the XP support period as it did with Windows 98.

Another problem for Redmond is the increasing competition from both Macintosh and desktop Linux systems, which can still run on hardware used for Windows XP. Maybe this will be Microsoft’s “winter of discontent”.