Resellers dismiss Vista, Office 2007 delays

Australian resellers have brushed off Microsoft's decision to delay Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 releases until early next year, citing lack of customer interest for the products.

Despite US resellers being up in arms over the delays, local resellers claimed that Vista and Office shipment delays won't affect sales with some only recently recieving a small number of enquiries.

Microsoft had earmarked January nex year as a release timeframe for Vista and Office 2007.

Ming Wah, manager at online reseller PC Market, said not many of its customers are requesting the product.

“I don’t believe it affects our customers as much. It wouldn’t affect us as well, because in terms of hardware if a customer really needs it, they don’t care if the software is not there,” Wah said.

“In terms of Office 2007, business users aren’t looking to buy the product around Christmas, usually they will be buy products when it affects business and that’s at the end of the financial year.

“It’s been a while since end-users really know or care if the [operating system] they're using is Vista or not. All they care about is Office XP,” he said.

Simon Thomas, sales executive at IT retailer Alphastore, said the company was still selling Microsoft Office 2003.

“It’s a wait and see situation. If we get a lot of customer demands for the products then we will be in trouble. However so far we haven’t had many enquiries in relation to Microsoft Vista or Microsoft Office 2007,” said Thomas.

Wah believed the shipment delays are "two of many delays" and he would only start to panic if Microsoft didn't release the products past the end of the this financial year.

However, David Wu, MD at reseller group Computer Australia, said he was hoping Vista and the new Office package would arrive late this year, so the company could "have a big Christmas."

“November is a quiet month and the group was hoping it could sell Vista in the lead-up to the Christmas period. "Now that's not the case," he said.