You couldn’t make it up. After a total rewrite of the Windows Vista code in 2004, it now looks as if Microsoft is recoding up to 60 percent of the operating system. Current forecasts point to January 2007 for release of the consumer editions, but this too may be in doubt.

Smarthouse reports: “Up to 60% of the code in the new consumer version of Microsoft new Vista operating system is set to be rewritten as the Company ’scrambles’ to fix internal problems a Microsoft insider has confirmed …”

The company desperately wants to make the 2007 CES show for consumer electronics in Las Vegas and has “pulled programmers from the highly succesful Xbox team to help resolve many problems associated with entertainment and media center functionality inside the OS. The team are also working closely with engineers from the Intel Viiv team. and it is now expected that the next version of Viiv could be delayed to line up with the launch of the consumer version of Vista at the 2007 CES Show in Las Vegas.”

As Syntagma puts it: “However fast you drive or fly towards it, the horizon never gets any nearer. … Syntagma has a solution for all this uncertainty. Rename Windows Vista, Windows Horizon. Then we’d understand … philosophically, at least.”