Longhorn rollout slips
Microsoft executives from Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates on down have long described Longhorn as the Redmond, Wash., company's most revolutionary operating system to date. 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.
Later than sooner I take it?
As for the reasons Microsoft is further delaying Longhorn, one theory is that the company could be postponing the release of the next wave of its flagship products until the remedy order issued last year by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to settle the antitrust case against Microsoft expires.
That agreement, valid for five years, forces Microsoft to make available for license the protocols between its client and server environments.
"Once they get beyond the time frame of the remedy, they will be free to change the client and server protocols, which could make it more difficult to emulate a Windows server or client, as was the case prior to the remedy order," Al Gillen, an analyst with International Data Corp., in Framingham, Mass., told eWEEK.
But Microsoft spokeswoman Erica Beyer said it is "highly unlikely" that Longhorn will be released after the consent decree expires in November 2007, adding that "also, any and all relevant APIs will be disclosed as documented on release of the product."
Only those relevant as Microsoft sees fit, hidden API calls may not be documented like earlier versions of Windows.