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According to Nash the timeline for general availability will be:
In mid-March
Windows Vista SP1 will be released to Windows Update (in English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese) and to the download center on microsoft.com. Customers who visit Windows Update can choose to install Service Pack 1. If Windows Update determines that the system has one of the drivers Microsoft know to be problematic, then Windows Update will not offer SP1. Some customers may want to update to SP1 anyhow, so the download center will allow anyone who wants to install SP1 to do so.
In mid-April
Windows Vista SP1 will begin to be delivered via Automatic Update to Windows Vista customers. That said, any system that Windows Update determines has a driver known to not update successfully will not get SP1 automatically. As updates for these drivers become available, they will be installed automatically by Windows Update, which will unblock these systems from getting Service Pack 1. The result is that more and more systems will automatically get SP1, but only when Microsoft are confident they will have a good experience.
The remaining languages will RTM in April.
Service Pack 1 is a very important milestone for Vista because it is designed to address many of the key issues that customers have identified with Windows Vista over the last year. Microsoft claims with Service Pack 1 to have made great progress in performance, reliability and compatibility, especially in areas that impact the customer experience the most. For instance, with SP1, copying or moving files around your PC, your home network or your corporate network should now be much faster -- up to 50% faster in some scenarios (according to Microsoft internal tests). In addition, on many kinds of hardware, resuming a Windows Vista-based PC from sleep is faster on Service Pack 1.
However improvements have been delivered over this last year in terms of improving application and device compatibility. For example, 98 out of the top-selling 100 applications have versions available for Windows Vista. Huge progress has also been made with hardware, with 78,000 devices and components now supported by Windows Update, up from about 34,000 in November 2006. In total Microsoft have licensed over 100 million copies of Windows Vista to date.
EJC IT Comment
The release of Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) is a key milestone for corporate customers who have been waiting for its release before committing to deploy Windows Vista widely within their organisations.
Improvements in performance, reliability and compatibility coupled with the demonstrable business benefits of Vista such as search and organisation, together with manageability and security will give people the level of reassurance that they have been looking for.
Companies deploying Vista should still follow a best practice deployment process, including hardware and software assessment, user communication and training, as well as robust project management.
Read More
Find out about the EJC IT Rapid Deployment Service for Windows Vista and Office 2007, including SharePoint Server. Click here
Read more about how EJC IT is working with customers to deploy and support Windows Vista and Office 2007. Click here
Read the full announcement from Microsoft at the Windows Vista Team Blog. Click here | 
