Gates explains Longhorn changes

Q&A Microsoft on Friday set late 2006 as the deadline for it to ship Longhorn, the next major version of Windows.

But to make that date, it had to delay the full implementation of WinFS, an ambitious file system geared toward letting users search through all of their files at once.

Whether Microsoft makes this latest deadline is likely to be one of the dominant issues for the tech industry over the next two years. The operating system was originally expected in 2004, and many have predicted that further delays could dampen PC sales.

Meanwhile, the growing popularity of Linux has begun to nibble at Microsoft's dominance on the desktop, while Google has emerged as a major competitor on the Internet. Will Longhorn be dazzling enough to undercut these trends? The fate of the industry hangs in the balance.

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates spoke exclusively with ZDNet UK sister site CNET News.com on Friday about how Microsoft handles deadlines and new opportunities.

Q: Can you give us a summary of what happened with Longhorn?
A: Windows is the most widely used piece of software in the world, and therefore, the diversity of things people do with it and the benefits to improving it are greater than certainly any piece of software that's ever been done. And we reflect that by having huge R&D investment in Windows.

The PDC (Professional Developers Conference) last year was where we really talked about the vision of Longhorn and all the different pieces. Of course, we had the SP2 work, which, because it was security-focused, we gave the highest priority to. We had the releases we'd always had planned, the Media (a new version of Windows XP Media Centre) and Tablet.

And then, Jim (Allchin) and a guy who works for Jim, Brian Valentine, went through with everybody, and asked "OK, where are we? What's the feedback that we've gotten from ISVs (independent software vendors) and people?" And we went through this replanning process that has come out with the plan we're announcing today.

This is the first time we've actually given a date for when we'll ship the Longhorn operating system. It's always risky in a software project, especially one where the compatibility requirements and the scope of the features of what we deliver in versions of Windows are incredibly broad, but we've made enough progress. We've got enough methodology in place that we decided that was the right thing to do.