Despite earlier announcements this week at TechEd from various Microsoft noteworthies that the SP1 beta would be made available on or before the end of July, 2010, Thurrot reports that “…now this date, which was ‘GA+1,’ or one year after the general availability of Windows 7 and [Windows Server 2008]R2, is out of date.” He then goes on to say that “In fact, SP1 could be shipping a lot later than originally planned and won’t even make it in time for the end of 2010.”

That’s pretty interesting, and when taken with Microsoft’s recent “message of import” about Windows 7 SP1 — namely, that there’s no real reason to wait for SP1 to get the adoption process underway — makes the kind of crazy sense I’ve learned to grant some credence when it comes to decoding the often-ineffable work of the spinmeisters in Redmond. Not only does this help to make a virtue of a necessity, it also lets them protect their revenue projections for 2010, even if SP1 slips into the next calendar year.

Boy, will it be interesting to see how this one pans out, and whether or not beta in July translates into general availability and/or public release of the final SP1 before or after next New Year’s. Only time will tell!