David Richards, writing for Australian website Smarthouse, reiterates today his previous contention that Windows Vista is having up to 60 percent of its code rewritten. Here’s the passage:

“Mr Raymond Vardanega, the Marketing Director, of Acer Australia has confirmed independently of SmartHouse Magazine that Microsoft is having major problems with its Vista operating system. He said ‘The decision to delay Vista into the consumer market will have an impact on hardware sales particularly in the Media Centre market. We have been told that Microsoft has bought in programmers from the Xbox team to work on the problems. We have also been told that up to 60% of the code will have some form of re writing or changes made. We are told that Microsoft is concerned at the impact that the delay will have on hardware manufacturers. We have raised our concerns directly with Microsoft.’ ”

Microsoft tech evangelist Robert Scoble commented on this blog that the reorg is true but the rewrite is not. But Microsoft has not rebutted this story officially, and Richards is claiming that a Redmond partner, Acer, albeit the Australian office, is maintaining it’s true.

Come on, Microsoft, tell us what’s going on here. Is it true or is Scoble being set up as a turkey to play for time while Redmond decides how to handle this story? Either way, it’s bad for the company.

Update: Scoble says, Can this week ever end?