Microsoft claims it is on track to ship Whistler, the next version of its Windows operating system, next year despite influential analyst opinion that the release date is likely to slip.

The assurance by Jim Ewel, vice president of infrastructure at Microsoft, comes as the copies of the first beta of Whistler are arriving through the letterboxes of key hardware partners and 200,000 software developers. Microsoft wants feedback and to allow hardware and software vendors to ready themselves for Whistler.

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