Windows Vista has gone “gold,” meaning it has been released to manufacturing. So Microsoft will make a deadline and have it in PC manufacturers hands at the end of the month and on retail shelves at the end of January. However, there seems to be a funny vibe surrounding it. Don’t expect lines of geeks waiting for a midnight release to snap up copies; the sense out there is that mostly people will be holding their breath hoping it isn’t a debacle. Check out this quote from Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s CTO:

"It's released to manufacturing. That means it went through an immense amount of testing. When it goes out, it will not be perfect and there will be updates. But at the point it's at now, it feels really good. Is it perfect? No, it's software and it will have flaws. But it's fulfilling the roles that an operating system must fulfill in this day and age."

There is someone who is pumped up about their product: “it’s fulfilling the roles.” Wow. To see what could have been, check out Microsoft’s promotional video for Vista from back when it was codenamed “Longhorn.”

So, anyone excited about the impending release of Vista?