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TESS VIGELAND: It’d have been five years in the coming when Microsoft finally released its new Vista operating system to corporate customers late last month. It was supposed to be the safest, most secure operating system yet. But now it’s looking like it might be far from that. The New York Times is reporting today that yet another security flaw has been discovered in the much await software. Alisa Roth has more from New York.

ALISA ROTH: In this commercial, words flash on the screen, highlighting Vista’s features. “See the difference in security,” it says, “improve your customers peace of mind with new security solutions.”

Or maybe not. A Silicon Valley security firm says it found several flaws in the new software this weekend. One is potentially quite serious.

Michael Cherry analyzes operating systems for a company called Directions on Microsoft.

MICHAEL CHERRY: Software by its very nature will never be completely safe. For everything that they know about and they found, there’s possibly other things that they didn’t.

And he says, now is the time those glitches are going to turn up.

CHERRY: To me it’s not that suprising that we would have so many initially because of the fact that so many people are, people are looking at them if you will.

The consumer version of Vista is scheduled to come out in January. Its release has already been delayed several times, in part because of security worries. But consultant Rob Enderle says some of the security firms’ warnings may be motivated by a desire to drum up business.

ROB ENDERLE: The security firms are trying to find a reason to make customers that buy Vista buy their products. And for the most part that means they have to show vulnerabilities in the product.

Enderle says there is an upside to all the scrutiny: Vista will have a lot fewer bugs by the time it hits your PC.

In New York, I’m Alisa Roth for Marketplace.