I noticed an interesting article in Computerworld (”Microsoft says Vista still ‘on track’ despite Gartner doubts“)yesterday, speculating on the possibility that Microsoft may be forced to delay, once again, its much-delayed operating system, Vista. The latest fuss is based on an observation from the Gartner Group, which published a research note indicating that it took Microsoft 16 months to move from the “beta-2″ version of Windows 2000 to the final release.

Gartner acknowledged that Microsoft has been fairly efficient at bringing out “minor” upgrades to its Windows operating system (which includes Windows XP, Windows 98 Second Edition, and Windows Millennium Edition), it has faced more difficulties resolving bugs and problems with major upgrades. Microsoft apparently disagrees, and issued a response to Gartner that said, ““We remain on track to deliver Windows Vista Beta 2 in the second quarter and to deliver the final product to volume license customers in November 2006 and to other businesses and consumers in January 2007.”

I think it’s fairly safe to assume that Vista is “feature complete” at this point; and this means — at least in theory — Microsoft could release the operating system to the public tomorrow. The question is simply whether those features work reliably enough for the software giant to be willing to run the risk of embarrassing bugs in the marketplace. Presumably, the Vista QA folks and project managers have a list of unresolved bugs, and hopefully they’re fixing “old” bugs faster than “new” bugs are being reported. And hopefully the number of “showstopper” bugs is steadily shrinking to a smaller and smaller number, which the QA folks have probably charted carefully, in order to extrapolate forward and predict that Vista will indeed be ready to ship in late 2006 or early 2007. Still, nobody at Microsoft really knows when they’ll reach the “zero showstopper” point; so perhaps Gartner’s predictions will prove to be accurate. My crystal ball, at least in this area, is no better than Gartner’s.

Meanwhile, it occurred to me that the uncertainties swirling around the Vista release date has probably created an opportunity for someone on Wall Street to make a lot of money. Hedge funds love to take positions on uncertainties like this, and there are probably a few dozen financial analysts trying to quantify the consequences of an early ship date, a delayed ship date, and an embarrassingly buggy release of Vista. Even if Vista is released on time, with relatively few embarrassing bugs, how long will it take the marketplace to assimilate the product — which may entail new hardware, new upgrades to various application programs, and even some retraining of end-users? How would an early-ship or late-ship date affect Microsoft’s competitors, suppliers, and business partners? Would it help or harm Yahoo and Google?

On a personal level, none of this matters very much to me: I’m a Mac user. I’m pretty confident that we’ll get a new Mac OS (code-named “Leopard”) before Vista appears; and I’m equally confident that we’ll see another release from Apple next year, and the year after that. But Microsoft has such a huge impact on the marketplace, and the overall software industry, that I plan to spend some time thinking about the direct and indirect consequences of a variance in the “nominal” plans that Microsoft has been announcing. I don’t have enough money to even consider investing in a Microsoft-related hedge fund; but if I’m ready for three or four of the more obvious contingencies, I might be able to offer some assistance to my existing clients.

What about you? If you seriously believe that Microsoft will be early, or late, or highly successful, or embarrassingly unsuccessful, with its release of Vista, are you prepared to put your money where your mouth is?