Bill Gates is on the record as saying there's an 80% chance Windows Vista will ship on time, but he seems to be the only one that certain it'll be ready. In order to meet its targeted release, Vista will have to be shipped to PC manufacturers in October or early November, which gives them somewhere between eight and fourteen weeks to get it done. More than a few people think that that's not possible, or at least very unwise. One of those people is .NET Developer and Vista enthusiast Robert McLaws, who is urging Microsoft to push the release back to February 2007. More interestingly, former Softie Robert Scoble has gone on the record agreeing with McLaws, writing, "If [Vista] ships in October, I will recommend not installing it and waiting for the first service pack. There's no way the quality will be high enough to trust it if it ships early. I hope Microsoft takes the time to do this right." Ouch. What's more, at Microsoft's recent meeting of financial analysts, Kevin Johnson, co-president of its Platforms & Services division, conspicuously avoided confirming Vista's ship date, saying it would ship "when it's ready."