Russian site says Windows 7 SP1 shipped to OEMs, Microsoft denies

A Russian Windows TechNet Blog Thursday evening announced "Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Released", and the presumption was that Microsoft had begun shipping SP1 (v. 601.17514.win7sp1_rtm.101119-1850.) to OEM partners.

The update has been slated for a first quarter 2011 release, and in October, RC1 of this incremental service update was pushed out. So the final RTM is expected to be very soon.

However, Microsoft denied the validity of the TechNet post by saying it "included some inaccuracies" and that it had not, in fact, shipped anything to OEMs yet. Representatives from MSDN and TechNet also spoke to Windows guru Mary Jo Foley, and said they had nothing to share at this moment.

I've reached out to Microsoft to at least get a direct quote from them in the English language. Until then, the question of how soon SP1 will arrive still remains.