What are the changes?
We are, as you heard, taking one of the major pillars of Longhorn and changing how we deliver that. Actually, there are changes in all the pillars, but in the case of Indigo and Avalon, it's mainly the addition of the down-level support. All XP users, not just Longhorn users, will be able to download the software. It's not a tiny download, but it's the kind of download that is not unreasonable in today's world.
WinFS is where we made the biggest change. We realised that we could do a lot of rich search capabilities in the OS without the full database, taking some of our text technology that's been used by Office, and actually, MSN is doing some nearer-term local-search things, building on that same technology.
Anyway, we decided that we could integrate that and get a lot of the navigational benefits, and that the really deep benefits have to do with database style system unification -- bringing the SQL language and all of the XML access stuff together. We were only doing a pretty modest amount of that under the WinFS that was going to ship in the operating system.
And we never had, in the Longhorn plan, WinFS server support. We were clear about that going back all the way to the PDC.
So now, we're doing the search stuff in Longhorn 06, and then we're releasing WinFS off-cycle as a development platform and as sort of an information management shell synchronised with a release of the database server as well.
What's the reaction from the PC makers?
Certainly, we've been in discussions with key partners, both on the ISV side and with companies like Intel and Hewlett-Packard.
Every constituency sees a Windows release through the particular things of interest to it, which are different. So Intel wants great chip support, ultrawideband support, WiMax support, different power-throttling capabilities, multicore -- things like that. Anyway, we've been through the plan with them, and this plan is very good in the sense that they're glad to see Longhorn coming into focus, they're glad to see the commitment to the date, and the hardware kind of supports things that they want are in their plans.
Talkback
well, he's got an honet face
That's why we let him get away with it
This is a window of opportunity people. Finally Linux does everything Windows does (and more). There is no reason not to make the change. Get out of Windows before you get locked straight back in again.
The possible reasons unanswered:
1. Mr Gates and his men were informed of too many security holes in current Windows' code by the feedback reports from Government Security Program, or other source-sharing activities. Until they complete patching those holes, or even rewrite the codes to make Windows a "Secure OS," Microsoft cannot make any contract with governments worldwide. They don't have time for blushing WinFS up.
2. Mr Gates and his men found that WinFS is too valuable to bundle with a desktop OS like XP. They might think WinFS has a possibility to be another cashcow for the company, especially in the context of Web-services.
3. As a file system, WinFS is too complicate to manage. When the storage sytem goes down, recovery of the contents will be more difficult work and takes longer than NTFS. It doesn't provide users with benefit.
4. The post-XP should be a 64-bit OS. This means that all source codes need to be recompiled with secured new compiler, and to be tested thoroughly. I cannot imagine how long does it take.
I will not buy that for a dollar.