In an e-mail to it’s Technology Adoption Partners, Microsoft confirms that it is preparing SP1 for release in the second half of 2007. The nature of the message was to seek customers and partners for testing and feedback on the service pack. They state that SP1 “…will be a standard service pack that will include security updates, hotfixes, as well as limited other changes focused on improving quality.”

It appears they will use the standard ‘beta first, then release candidate, and finally RTM version’ set of releases, so if they’re truly going to get it out this year, they must already be preparing code. Robert McLaws mentions how the Vista code will probably be updated with tweaks being composed for Server 2007, since they both share the same code base. This would presumably help to create a very stable OS.

The announcement is good news for enterprise, which generally waits until SP1 before seriously considering deployment, but a consumer would have to wonder about talk of a service pack before the initial product is even released to them.