Windows Longhorn gepland voor 2003

Tijdens de Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles heeft Bill Gates in een toespraak bevestigd dat Longhorn (de Windows XP-opvolger) in 2003 het daglicht zal zien. Hiermee wordt het gat enigszins opgevuld dat ontstond door de delay van Blackcomb naar 2005. Longhorn zal in 2003 volgens Bill een 'major Windows release' betekenen en meer .Net-bouwstenen bevatten zoals uitgebreidere peer-to-peer technology en "advanced presentation environment". Waarschijnlijk zal Microsoft pas in 2005 echt klaar zijn met .Net, wanneer Blackcomb op de markt komt. Onderstaande quote is afkomstig van dit bericht van The Register:

Down at the bottom of Bill Gates' keynote to the Professional Developers Conference yesterday lies confirmation that the wheels have come off the Windows rollout wagon. Again. Actually, we all already knew that the Big One, Blackcomb, has been knocked back in the general direction of 2005, and we already knew that the interim XP+1, Longhorn, was 2003, but Bill saying it - or something pretty close to it, anyway - is confirmation that it's going quiet for a while, and there will be no interim release next year.

[...] It will, reading between Bill's lines above, have beefed-up media playing capabilities, and no doubt whatever new .NETish features are available at the time. The timing of the "round of servers" and the "major new version of the tools" ought, we think, to give .NET developers a sinking feeling. It sounds suspiciously like Bill's telling them they're not going to get the real meat of .NET for another 18 months or so.

Even then, the Blackcomb rev will be another two years off at least. Blackcomb is intended to have built-in database technology, and to be the real .NET OS, so the reality of .NET is clearly a good way off yet. And isn't it interesting that the 'nearly' stage in 2003 syncs nicely with what InterTrust was telling us about the real impact point of .NET the other day?

Dank aan JAMF voor het opsturen van de link! Highlights van de PDC2001 kun je vinden op de Microsoft-site.