Speculation: ‘Fiji’ on track to debut before Windows 7

[Mike]

With Microsoft constantly switching up codenames, it's tough to keep track of what's on and what's off. But "Fiji" is on.

As reported a while back, "Vienna," formerly known as "Blackcomb" is officially known inside Redmond's hallowed halls as Windows 7 (or more accurately, "Windows Seven," kind of like "Oceans Eleven," according to one of my fussy sources).

Last year, I reported there was an interim Windows release on the books, code-named Fiji, that was slated to ship some time between Vista and Vienna. Others subsequently reported that Fiji was Vista Service Pack (SP) 1. Microsoft wouldn't comment either way.

Well, it turns out that Fiji is, indeed, an interim Windows release and it is not Vista SP1. Fiji is the codename for the next version of Windows Media Center, according to various sources and blog hints. And Microsoft's plan of record is to release this next Windows Media Center build "out of band," meaning in between core Windows releases.

So the Windows Media Center roadmap looks like this (courtesy of Charlie Owen, a product manager on the Media Center team):

Codename | Release Year

Freestyle | 2002

Harmony | 2003

Symphony | 2004

Emerald | 2005

Diamond | 2006 (this is the Media Center release built into Windows Vista Ultimate)

and now:

Fiji | 2008

Carefully avoiding the "F" word, Owen blogged on March 14:

"Diamond is the version of Windows Media Center which ships with Windows Vista, and is the only version of Windows Media Center (to date) which was synced with a major version of Windows. All prior releases were 'Windows Out Of Band Release' projects — meaning they weren't necessarily tied to a particular shipping date of Windows (or a Windows service pack). Our next version is yet another out of band release and (generally speaking) the team is pretty happy about that because it allows us to get back on our (approximate) yearly schedule of delivering goodness to customers (it was a major feat of engineering load balancing for us to be simultaneously working on 'Emerald' and 'Diamond' at the same time — a story for some other time). For the obvious follow up: Sorry, no dates or specific milestones to share, and past performance is not indicative of future release dates. Suffice it to say we are hard at work defining and coding the next version."

I have a lot of questions — none of which Microsoft is ready to answer, I'm sure:

* What is the internal ship target for Fiji? (I am hearing post Vista SP1, which is supposedly "latter half of 2007.)

* What new features will be in Fiji?

* Why is the Media Center team going back to its "out of band" release strategy? Was Diamond/Vista just a one-time aberration?

* Is this change permanent — i.e., are attempts by Microsoft to sync up Media Center with core Windows client releases a thing of the past (and part of the grand plan to speed up Windows client development/delivery)?

* Will Microsoft also release a Tablet-PC-centric version of Windows out of band?

I submitted my short list of questions to the Microsoft powers-that-be. The response: "No comment."

author: Mary-Jo Foley
source: www.zdnet.com

[Hellman109]

All versions of office and windows go in numerical order... Office is upto Office 12, and MS are skipping 13 and going to 14 (pretty sad a tech company is supersticious)

The whole VMC team was stolen for the Zune 2.5 update, hence Fiji never shipped on date. Ive now heard from a number of sources before Christmas this year. And Ive also heard that the VMC team is back onto the Fiji update.

Its also now called by a different name... CBF'd finding it now...

On the release cycle it seems to be going by their entertainment lines, EG twice a year update (yes I know it hasnt been that, but it appears to be going like how Zune and Xbox live is).

As for being out of band, it needs to be IMO, or it wont keep up. Even if it gets one interim release 18 months after the OS release thats fine, but digital media cant wait 3 years for an update.

[pantonious]

soo...will this be like a service pack or addon i can install to my Vista HP/Ult?

[arkay]

It's looking a lot like an "Update Rollup". Similar to Emerald.

Cheers,

Arkay.

[pantonious]

ahh k, thats what i though.

[slimf]

Its great news if they plan of making it out of band - It should be treated as a seperate application that can get major updates without having to wait for a new release of Windows.

hehe, they should also leave the media center programing team alone - putting them on the zune project is a waste of time IMHO :-P

[Hellman109]

Agreed that Media centre should be OOB. Its too fast a moving area to have 3 year releases.

And putting them on the zune WAS a waste, they are back where they should be now

[TheRob]

Just saw this story on the SMH site Microsoft may be forced to engage in 'regime change' if the can't reach a negotiated peace.

[zer0L0gic]

Windows Fiji or Windows Vista Media Center Feature Pack 2008 as Microsoft calls it now - is at RC0 status ATM (Been participating on Technical Beta).

So it is planned for a Q3, 2008 release. But it could be delayed - much of Microsoft's products are.

Also many of the changes that Microsoft were putting into 'Fiji' are now not going to see the light of day until Windows 7.

[slimf]

When they did Media Center for Vista I remember them saying that they really struggled to get it out the door for vista's release due to them having to redo all the UI for the new Vista graphics subsystem - therefore they left out a lot of new features.

We were kind of unofficially promised more features in the next release (fiji) - and now they are saying we need to wait for the next version of Windows? What a crok.

Media Center releases should be completly independant of any WIndows release.. they will never learn.