Gates: Vista's Chances 80-20 To Ship On Time

Gates commented on the operating system's and suite's chances while in South Africa, along with former President Bill Clinton, to highlight development and educational partnerships and programs.

However, he also repeated the company's promise to delay the next-generation operating system if current beta testing uncovered problems.

"We got to get this absolutely right," Gates told the Associated Press in Cape Town. "If the feedback from the beta tests shows it is not ready for prime time, I'd be glad to delay it."

According to some estimates, about 1 in 5 bugs submitted by Vista beta testers has not yet been fixed.

In March, Microsoft announced that it was pushing back Vista to a general January release, with corporate customers slated to receive the OS in November 2006. Since then, numerous analysts have said Vista will likely be delayed even deeper into next year.

Gates also told the AP that he hoped Office 2007, a major redesign of its industry-leading application suite, would be ready to ship in December.

Two weeks ago, Microsoft revealed that it was also delaying Office, and cited the need to respond to ongoing feedback as the reason for postponing the suite from October to "before the end of the year" for enterprises, and from January to "early 2007" for consumers.