Buy Office Professional Plus 2007 Microsoft Watch

October 11, 2003 12:00 PM
It's Official: No Longhorn Till 2006


At Microsoft's around the world companion conference this week,Windows 7 Starter Product Key, Microsoft lastly admitted that Longhorn will not likely see the mild of day right up until 2006.

This just isn't a guess on my aspect,Microsoft Office 2007, educated or in any other case. Or flame bait. Or conjecture. This can be straight in the horses' mouths.

At the show this week, many Microsoft execs casually slipped into their presentations that Longhorn is 3 decades far from debut. Very last time I did the math, that was not 2005, as promised only a couple of months back. Nor could it be even the wishy-washy "2005+" that a couple of execs had taken to attaching to their products timetables. The new target is 2006, plain and easy.

Did the organization believe no one would notice? Or maybe in any case that Abita beer on draft served up in the Friday evening companion social gathering with the Home of Blues, that no one could count?

Maybe Microsoft is assuming that tacking another yr onto a product that's by now far from debut would not make any difference. But when Longhorn client is 3 years away, that means the rest from the Longhorn wave also is three years from cresting.

That indicates there will probably be no Visual Studio resources release for 2 a long time after "Whidbey" (which Microsoft is still insisting will probably be a late 2004 products). No Workplace twelve right up until 2006. And Longhorn Server — which was expected, right up until this week, in 2006 — is now, more likely than not a 2007 item (given that it was set to lag the customer release by a year).

For some customers, a 12 months delay actually might be considered a relief. Not everyone wants and needs major product upgrades every two decades. And for Microsoft, which is in the midst of a major campaign to convince existing customers to upgrade to Windows XP and Workplace XP, a delay may help fuel such a push.

But Microsoft has been talking to its partners about Longhorn since 2001, at least. (I wrote my first story on "Indigo," the Web services stack on the heart of Longhorn, two years in the past).


Check Out This First Stab at Defining Indigo From 2001

Each year,Windows 7 Ultimate, we heard that more and more can't-live-without features would be baked into Longhorn. The ultimate in security (Next Generation Secure Computing Base, a k a "Palladium")? Longhorn. Self-healing/self-managing systems? The infrastructure is going to be baked into Longhorn. A simpler Windows-presentation infrastructure? Just hang on for Longhorn. The next version of Internet Explorer? Not available in any way other than as component of Longhorn.

Earlier this year, Microsoft execs proclaimed the organization had decided against introducing a stop-gap interim Windows release between XP and Longhorn. That didn't look like a bad strategy when Longhorn client was a 2004 products. Even as a 2005 item,Buy Office Professional Plus 2007, the idea of foregoing a "Shorthorn" wasn't outrageous. But now that it can be 2006? Five many years without a new desktop? That is a long time.

Even CEO Steve Ballmer seemingly is champing at the bit for a new release. In talking up XP Service Pack 2 — which Microsoft has delayed right up until Q2/Q3 of next 12 months in order to include a bunch of new security technologies in the SP — Ballmer called SP2 "a new version of Windows XP."

Read Ballmer's Full Companion Conference Keynote Speech Here

XP SP2: Service Pack or New Windows Release?

And More on What's New,Windows 7 Home Basic Key, From a Security Standpoint, in Service Pack 2

Indeed, Microsoft is planning to distribute XP SP2 quite broadly: through retail, OEMs, downloads and in other "creative ways." But the business is maintaining SP2 will be free. (Perhaps Microsoft could use XP SP2 as its "free software" poster child that it can pit against "free" open source software in its future TCO studies! I better not give them any ideas….)

Do you care that Longhorn is now a 2006 deliverable? Does yet one more delay impact you in any way? If so, how?

Write me at mswatch@ziffdavis.com and let me know what you believe.