Microsoft plans to ship beta 2 of its forthcoming Windows Vista operating system next year, the company said in a conference call with reporters.

Although the company hadn't published a timetable for the software release, some observers had expected the application to be released this December or early 2006. However, Microsoft is still on track to ship Vista in the second half of 2006.

Amitabh Srivastava, a corporate vice president with Microsoft's Windows unit, said that the firm is actually picking up the development pace.

"We are accelerating development to get most features done by the end of December and all features integrated early next year," Srivastava said.

Microsoft released a first beta of Vista in last July and has published so-called community technology previews (CTP) in September and October. The company will skip the November CTP, which instead will be released to a limited group of testers. The next CTP is scheduled for release in December before Christmas.

A CTP is an interim test release of the application that aims to provide Microsoft with addition feedback from testers. The CTP process hasn't previously been used for releases of Microsoft's operating systems, but leads to better quality and ease of use, said Srivastava. It also puts less pressure on the forthcoming beta 2.

"Beta 2 is still an important milestone for broad customer testing, but it's less urgent because of the engineering and CTP releases," said Srivastava.

For future CTP releases Microsoft also plans to offer additional background information on the enhancements they feature. This is will show testers when they can start testing specific features such as desktop deployments.

Forthcoming releases will be made available when the technology is ready, rather than according to a pre-set timetable. This will allow Microsoft greater control over the quality of the shipped code and ensures that all features are present.