The Leopard Timeline, Why Spring 2007

Briefly, here is why I think Leopard (10.5) is not coming out until Spring 2007 ... note I did not say 'delayed,' every release date has been based on rumor sites ... and if you believed everything they said, we'd all be working on a tablet Mac ...

A) Vista will barely poke its head out by Spring 2007 IF THEN so there's no real reason to get to market earlier than that ...

B) While the January MacWorld (2007) looms, frankly, an OS release is really not that exciting ... after the holidays, you want to really jazz up a quarter's sales ... you do that with a VIDEO IPOD & movie store ... not by shipping an OS ... or maybe the equally mythical iPhone ... either will strir up the crowds, wall streets and bloggers ... not an OS release - no matter how nice it is.

C) By Spring 2007, it will be another quarter (spacing out sales!) and just in time for a Mac Pro refresh along with Leopard ... so that should clinch the deal for anyone still holding out (plus Office & Adobe should FINALLY be ready to go Intel) ... and anyone who bought the new desktop Intel Macs this month won't feel so bad about buying a replacement (if they have the resources) and won't grumble as much ... if you spend $6k on a machine, you want it to be king of heap for at 6 months ....