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Microsoft Longhorn Delayed
skreuzer writes "Microsoft has once again shifted the schedule for the release of "Longhorn," the company's next major version of Windows. The product was originally expected to ship next year. Then in May of this year, officials pushed back the release date to 2005. But now executives are declining to say when they expect the software to ship."
They're up to something.
Microsoft aren't regular 'deadline'-missers - opting to release sub-par software instead just to reach the deadline.
I'm guessing hardware and licensing deals myself.
What will it mean to have no new IE till 2008?
I'm much funnier now that I'm a subscriber.
Now Longhorn is the one that's supposed to be as good as Mac OS X Panther that comes out this fall, right?
Longhorn is the one that's supposed to add support for hardware based denial to your files when a media company says so.
But according to IDC's Gillen, there are other possible reasons for the delay, including the fact that Microsoft's ability to rapidly introduce change into its products is becoming increasingly difficult.
Maybe the "ability to rapidly introduce changes" can be read "ability to patch." I hope they use the extra time to test the security and operability extensively, to patch holes and problems before they reach the consumer.
It's general knowledge that one should not introduce a broken product to market, nevermind try to cover it with patches. Lets hope they release a fully stitched quilt, rather than rely on customers to make a run to the local fabric store.
Does this fact seem to just a little to much of a conincidence? It would make perfect sense for MS to wait untill they can go back to their "old" ways again. That said, it will be a LONG time between product releases, which makes me want to agree with some other posters who have said that this suggests we'll see a Windows XP: Second Edition or something like that.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
That's not the point here. The "when it's ready" release schedule in the open source world is a great thing. If MS has learned that lesson, we should all be clapping. MS may never give us open source/libre software, but if they produce good software vs "good enough" software, the world will be that much better.
However... the point here is that Microsoft is creating an incredible window of opportunity here for their competitors. OS X is a better desktop system than Win XP. The open source desktops, perpetually behind, may well have time to catch up. Perhaps more importantly, with no new release of Internet Explorer in the works for the next two or more years, people might start to learn to look for alternatives and download browsers again. We could see a resurgence of competition and innovation in the web browser space -- and we'll probably get more standards compliant browsers in the mix.
In short, yeah, it's great to pillory Microsoft, but the big news here is not the egg on their face. It's the chance to show them up, and take part of their marketshare again, while their product line is aging, their reputation for security is trashed, their licensing policies are painful, I/T budgets are tight, and really, who has actual *affection* left for them anymore?
Tweet, tweet.
IMHO, Win2k is the best OS that Microsoft has ever made.
not that that is saying much ;)
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
RH, any distro for that matter updates so many packages. with windows updates and fixes, it is for the OS itself. pertiod. when you consider that even rh comes with well over 1000 packages, most are third party apps, open source sure, but not rh apps. there is no double standard.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Longhorn sounds like an OS development effort that is spinning out of control. Microsoft could always copy the strategy that Apple used when Apple's Copland effort blew up in 1996 -- buy a company with a Unix-based OS and switch everyone to that.
Should Microsoft call it Visual Linux#.NET or OS XP?
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Integration is not the issue, the security features are the problem. They will have to introduce the features in MS office, which they have done. Then the processor encoded content locks they want are giving Intel fits. Microsoft has now got to go it alone with their version of trusted computing. What the implimentation is trying to do is make it so business can send .docs, xls, in a read receipt form. This will be set so that unless you have the security key to read the document you will not be able to decode it. MS is trying to impliment its own encription that will only alow other MS based systems to comunicate. The same old shit but with the twist that it is for your security that you must only use MS encript locks and keys. Intel is getting some kind of pissed at Microsoft because they need the high end server and scientific multiprocessor market to make their current Itanium processor line pay. So far Unix and Linux is kicking the shit out of MS at this, so the 3 billion Intel invested in 64 bit multiprocessing is not paying off. That is why MS licensed SMP protocols from SCO, they are trying to catch up to IBM and Linux but are having one hell of a time because the Intel 64 bit implimentation sucks.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
MSDOS: 20+ years without remote hole in the default install
That's because MSDOS doesnt have any native networking in the default install. Troll.
Of those to whom much is given, much is required.
I am not alone when I say this: Windows 2000 is the best Microsoft OS since DOS 6.22. I had to get that off my chest.
I think that the reason they are delaying Longhorn is because of all the bad hype they have received this past week. They are beginning to realize that people now are concerned about security. When they have to pay someone like myself $45.00 an hour to remove a stupid worm from their computers, they are pissed. They want to know why this is happening to them, and it is getting easier to explain to them that the Windows code is swiss cheese, since they hear it being confirmed on the 6 o'clock news.
Microsoft is obviously delaying the release due to the fact that they had shit for security in the code they posses now, and they are bringing it to the table to clean it up.
A man can have dreams, can't he?
DISCLAIMER:
I don't believe what I write, and neither should you.
Of course this is just wishful thinking. I'm sure they'll do something diabolical in the meantime. Maybe they feel like there's enough money to be made yet by the use of licensing press gangs. "You WILL sign up, or we'll sue you into the ground, you dirty corporate pirates!"
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Could somebody elaborate on this, or is this person just karma whoring? I thought MT on NT was actually quite acceptable. They did screw up multi *processing* so that a Unix-style solution where one program calls another is inefficient, but I though multithreading where two processors share all memory pages was done reasonably well.
What NT needs from Posix is the uniform filename space. This could be done by migrating some of the innards "kernel names" to the FileOpen interface so any normal program can use this and access "unions" or whatever they call them. This would get rid of drive letters and allow at least a form of symbolic link, these are by far the biggest defects in NT from my perspective.
They also need to allocate all communication channels from the same pool of "fd" numbers and fix their damn select mechanism so that it accepts all of them (it is ok if they always report ready or never report ready, but it is inexcusable that I need to send different things to different interfaces).
I would also like them to return '/' from all their interfaces that return pathnames, and to make filenames be raw byte streams rather than a piece of the GUI (ie eliminate case-independence and wide-character interfaces) but these are probably hopeless. (and the case-independent disease has now invaded OSX Unix so we are probably doomed)
A real fork would be nice too.
MS has a microincrmental approach to actual new feature inclusion, a glacial pace for real UI changes and an invisible, it will work when it works if it works at all approach to under the covers patches and design fixes.
So what could possibly be Major? Yet more restrictive DRM?, A new driver model that sends all the HW vendors to hit the bottle? Eh?
If I were deeply cynical which of course I'm not I'd say that 'delays' such as they are are keyed to the symbiotic relationship they have to Intel. When/if Intel bakes a new batch of chips they need to sell suddenly a 'new' version of Windows will come along to 'need' them.
Well, look, no matter what Microsoft does, people bitch. Now they can't even announce their product line without it being an evil conspiracy.
Let's use this opportunity to finish playing catchup and then surpass them. People have been saying Linux is "ready for the desktop" since 1999, and it's just not, at least not with current offerings. Let's get to work!
"Sufferin' succotash."
Longhorn will be to previous versions of windows what Windows 95 was back in the day - a radical change. Old apps will be supported, but only in compatibility mode (like 16-bit win. 3.11 apps are supported in windows right now). All the new APIs will be managed which means fast, secure and componentized. There will be new security model. There will be new UI library very different from what you can use now, and, again managed. GDI will only be supported in compatibility mode - graphics engine will change as well. This coupled with a shitload of other technologies will make it a worthy target for developers and businesses.
Do not underestimate the power of several thousand quality developers fueled by several billions of dollars. They've hired out creme of the crop in the dotcom bust phase and now their workforce is better and more dedicated than ever.
If they're willing to adjust the schedules on top of that, the resulting product may really be scary good.
Lads, observe the above posting to see how to bullsh*t really well.
What this MBA (Master Bullsh*t Artist) doesn't tell you is that Windows Server 2003 was vulnerable to the same RPC exploit that the Blaster worm took advantage of. Go look for yourselves here: MS03-026 if you don't believe me.