-Looks like Vista, the new Microsoft operating system won’t make its targeted release in November. No word on exactly when it will appear but one thing is certain it won’t help PC sales for the holiday season. How much it will affect the industry is uncertain. With high expectations for a strong holiday season, dashed Microsoft will have to rely on its release of the new Office.

In the end, this may be as much about marketing as it is about the product not being ready. Volume licensing customers will still be able to get a hold of Vista this year, only a few weeks later than expected. Allowing them plenty of time to integrate Vista into their products. Detractors and loyal Microsoft users will not be surprised by the delay, as it has become second nature to the software industry and particularly Microsoft in general. However, after the issues involved with the release of XP a great many people welcome any delay that could affect the reliability of the operating system. Perhaps a January launch will mean just a few less instances of users being bombarded by the blue screen of death.

-Google will be complying with a court order to hand over information from its search engine to the U.S. government. While their fight highlighted their desire to keep the information, secure both for their users and their own trade secrets it has also brought to the publics attention the fact that search companies have detailed lists of everything users have searched. While web savvy users have known this snippet, the general public has largely ignored this fact. There are many on forums taking this news to heart and questioning what they type into their favorite search engine for fear it could come back to haunt them.

-With Sony announcing a November launch for the much-anticipated release of the PS3, speculation abounds as to how much of a market lead Microsoft can cash in on before the competition begins. For both camps in the Sony versus Microsoft console wars, this news is great. Either because it gives Xbox 360 more time to build a loyal customer base or the PS3 more time to coordinate a better launch. It’s clear the Blueray-HD DVD fight enters into their decision along with their attempts to outdo their competitors at having a successful worldwide launch.

Any discussion about the PS3 really doesn’t matter until pricing is released. While PS3 having a Blue-ray player will give it a higher technology edge, they may be pricing themselves out of casual gamers budgets. By the time the next tech conference rolls around there should be more definitive information on the PS3. One this for sure, if Microsoft wants to make the most of their time on store shelves without direct competition they’d better start releasing more games and better games.