It’s official: Windows Vista has gone gold and has been released to manufacturing (RTM). This caps off about 5 years of development. Vista will launch in two phases. This month, Microsoft will roll out Vista to business customers. A separate launch on January 30, 2007 will take place for consumers. Microsoft will also release the Microsoft Office 2007 System, .NET Framework 3.0 and Exchange Server 2007 in the same timeframe.
Vista marks the debut of the Windows Mobile Device Center, ActiveSync’s replacement. It will be integrated into Vista so you will not need to go and install it separately. It will be updated via Windows Update and will be manageable through a Group Policy. Unfortunately, it will not support Windows Mobile 2003 and later (leaving older device users out in the cold) and Wi-Fi syncing is not making a reappearance. For more on the Windows Mobile Device Center, check out Microsoft’s Jason Langridge’s writeup over at MSDN.