The last month was also a testing phase for us (as well as the witnesses and other developers). As a result, we can ensure a smoother hardfork as a few bugs were actually identified and solved.

Hard fork dates must be announced with enough time for businesses (especially exchanges) to be able to perform the upgrade. IF for some reason the majority of witnesses don't vote in this hardfork, it would not effect businesses that have upgraded - everything will keep on functioning as normal with the current hardfork version, even with the upgraded software.