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Longhorn Server Scrapped
punkass writes "Microsoft announced Tuesday that plans for .Net Server, aka "Longhorn" have been scrapped and they will instead focus on the the release after that, code-named Blackcomb. NT4 came out in 96, 2k in 2000, and Longhorn was due out in 2005-06...Blackcomb seems to be a long time between releases."
Didn't all those people who signed up for the subscription did so on the premise of a new upgrade every 2 years or so? So now MS gets to take their money and no product to show for it.
Maybe not enough people signed up?
Security patches are to be reckoned with. However, the long interval between new Windows server releases means that there will be large differences inbetween versions. If there's something that the IT departments don't like, it's large differences. That means that there are more things that may go wrong. Their current business logic software may even need a complete rewrite if the changes are large enough.
So - I really have to wonder what crack Microsoft is smoking. They seem to be desperately out of tune with their users in the server market, and the Linux acceptance is proof. Professional users like backwards compatibility, and incremental changes. That is something UNIX and Linux provides.
Look at OSX, too. After their initial release, they've been spewing out evolutionary releases and bug fixes.
So, by having such large new server releases, they are raising the stakes for everyone - both themselves and the corporate users.
Oh well. I don't mind if Microsoft loses power and influence..
Stop the brainwash
Personally, I don't know why Microsoft would have released .NET server next year, and then followed a year later with Longhorn. It doesn't make any sense. Every shop I've ever worked in or worked with as a consultant had a general rule of never upgrading Microsoft's server platform until it had been out for at least 6 months, if not a year. By the time these guys finished doing a deployment of .NET, Longhorn would be hitting the streets. At least by pushing the schedule back to Blackcomb, they are getting to a more reasonable timeline.
Personally, I think Microsoft should maintain a 4 year release cycle on their server OS, and a 2 year cycle on the desktop OS/productivity suite. Anything shorter and you are going to outrun your customers. I mean, if you are running a big, multisite network with 2000+ users, do you really want to deploy an OS upgrade every year or two? Hell, I know of at least one large, multinational company that is still standardized on NT 4.0 Server and Windows 95 (and as far as I know, they are going to milk it as long as they can). Besides, a 4/2 cycle is pretty close to your average lease times on hardware, which simplifies deployment since you can time your OS upgrades with your hardware upgrades (at least, on the desktop).
The only thing Microsoft gets by releasing a new OS every year is a lot of people skipping versions. Maybe they finally clued in to that fact?
However, the long interval between new Windows server releases means that there will be large differences inbetween versions. If there's something that the IT departments don't like, it's large differences.
Not to mention accumulating cruft in the exsting releases.
Anyone here have to put up with NT4.0? Between option packs and service packs and patch rollups and old 4x CD-ROMs, correctly installing an NT4-based IIS server was basically an all-day affair. Not to mention numerious things that could be screwed up, leaving goatse-sized security holes. Not even MS could keep the hotfixes straight.
Then Windows 2000 comes, which is great, but requires an order of magnitude more network planning for Active Directory. Many places still haven't bothered.
The key bit is the next server release after 2003 is when MS will scrap classic LanMan/NT4-style networking. At that point many customer networks are going to break, and they might just as well switch to something cheaper (Linux). MS might have wised up and chose to push that date out as far as possible.
It's a dual-edged sword -- MS got into the server market for being simple, cheap, and partially autoconfiguring. Then big customers start demanding lots of complexity, and you end up with expensive, complex, and requiring good admins. Novell never quite survived the introduction of NDS -- it will be interesting if MS does better with AD.
Oh, kinda like WMP8 then. A horrible interface that takes up 200% of the screen real estate as the media that you're viewing, with built-in software to "protect the user" from copying images from one medium to another all the while promoting Microsoft-patented media formats on the net.
I can't wait!
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
The funny thing about innovation is that it happens everywhere. Take the upcoming version of MS Office which touts two technologies that have debuted in Free Software first. The XML formats for Office are nothing more than a ripoff of OpenOffice's XML formats, and Outlook's new virtual folders are lifted directly from Evolution and it's VFolders.
There is no question that Free Software is doing a lot of mimicking of commercial products, but that is simply because Free Software hackers are building a desktop from scratch. It's pretty tricky to build a word processor that doesn't look like MS Word, or a spreadsheet that doesn't resemble Excel. Especially considering that one of the major goals of these projects is to get people to switch to the Free Software products. Part of convincing people to switch is making the transition as easy as possible.
When you get outside of the desktop, where Free Software has to copy Microsoft to even be considered, then it is clear that Free Software has done quite a bit of innovation. The reason for this is simple, with Free Software you don't have to start from scratch each time you have an idea. Instead you can add a bit on to an already existing product.