Amazon is now Accepting Vista Orders

Five years after the fanfare of XP’s release, the US online retailing giant, Amazon, has already begun to accept pre-orders for Microsoft’s long-awaited new operating system amidst reports that the release of Vista may face further delays - Microsoft’s shares having fallen 2% after a senior executive for the company appeared to publicly avoid confirming that the much touted January 2007 release was still attainable, instead stating that the new operating system would simply be shipped “when it is available”.

The comment, made at the company’s recent financial analyst meeting, has understandably triggered speculation of yet more delays to a product which was initially due to be released in the second half of 2006.

Amazon are offering a number of full price versions of the operating system as well as an upgrade for XP users, with the Basic Vista being listed at £106 ($199 USD) and the home/office version at £210 (£399 USD). The XP upgrade to Vista Basic will cost you £53 ($99 USD) whereas the top of the range Premium version will set you back $399 and $259 for the full and upgrade versions respectively. The full version of Vista Business edition, which is not due till November of next year, will be priced at £157 ($299 USD).

Though the release of Vista is highly anticipated, and will no doubt be accompanied by a PR fanfare of epic proportions, the general consensus is that many potential end-users will not be looking to upgrade in the immediate future, instead opting to either wait until they fully upgrade their existing set-ups or to hold back until a general consensus of opinion is formed regarding the OS.

Personally, though I count myself as being one of those who are extremely anxious to get my hands on Vista, I cannot envisage myself buying into the new OS from the offset, for a number of reasons; the foremost of these being my current hardware. Whilst my present machine works like a dream with XP, upgrading to Vista on this platform would be utterly pointless as I have no doubt that Vista would bring it to its knees.

The only way it would work is if I were to cut back drastically on all the bells and whistles and, to be perfectly frank with you, that’s the primarily the reason I want Vista (and I accept this probably appears extremely shallow, but the overall aesthetic of the new OS does appeal). And, in respect of these hardware specific concerns, I also certainly want to wait for dust that will no doubt accompany the release of new Direct X 10 compliant graphics boards to settle, as these will very much be a prerequisite if all Vista’s visually rich loveliness is to truly sparkle.

But, of all these concerns, I think there is one main reason as to why I will have to wait before taking up Vista, and that is this – it is an excuse to splash out for a new computer (and I am sure that I will not be placed in the minority in wishing to use Vista’s release to upgrade). So why wait? Why not by a new machine on Vista’s release, with the new OS already bundled? The answer, again, is simple – I need time to convince my wife that a new computer is not only wholly necessary, but absolutely mandatory.

And this, I know, will take some considerable time.

If you haven’t already located the official Vista site you can get there now by following this link.