By the time Longhorn ships, Microsoft plans to have a new version of its Internet Explorer browser, though the company said last month that it will make IE 7 available for Windows XP, a break from the company's mantra that browser updates would require an upgrade of the operating system.
Microsoft has not talked in detail about its plans to integrate desktop search into Longhorn, but Gartner analyst Michael Silver said that's a clear requirement.
"People want that now and they have to look to third parties," he said, noting that Apple will have significant search built into its Tiger operating system, which will ship sometime in the first half of this year.
Mobile computing moves
At last year's WinHEC, Microsoft outlined some of the features it was evaluating that it said would improve mobile computing in Longhorn. Among the ideas it was toying with were the ability for notebook computers to have a second, easy-to-access interface for key tasks such as playing a DVD or consulting an address book. Another feature the company outlined was a synchronisation engine that could make sure information is kept current between one or more PCs as well as on devices such as portable music players and flash memory cards.
The software maker also talked about a "mobility centre" that would bring together controls for laptop-related settings — such as display, power management and networking — much as the Security Centre does in XP Service Pack 2. A user could also create one profile that turned up performance for delivering a presentation, while a different "on the plane" profile might throttle down the power usage and turn off wireless connections. Such settings today must be changed individually and are scattered throughout the operating system.
It is unclear whether things such as the mobility centre or DVD-playing interface are still on tap for Longhorn.
Longhorn will definitely include improvements for wireless networking, both Wi-Fi and lower speed cellular networks. A Microsoft representative said last week that simplifying home networking is "a key focus" for Longhorn. A new Network Explorer will show all the PCs and devices that are connected to a network, and the company plans to offer several options for securing a wireless network, something that remains quite difficult for most Windows XP users.
Talkback
How many people actually set out to buy XP in the first place? XP was installed by default on most new PCs, and people have bought a lot of PCs in the last 4 years.
I imagine Longhorn will be sold by exactly the same means, and Microsoft will claim it to be a resounding success.
In short. The idea of having your company go through some sort of total migration project once every three, four or five years to then cool things down for several years seems to be a thing of the past. Because now it looks like you'll either wait until all Microsoft phases are proven and keep what you have mostly until then. Or you jump through all the hoops each and every time Microsoft delivers the next phase while running most things in some sort of downwards compatibility mode in the mean time. Or you say bullocks to all that and start looking for lasting alternatives. In other words: there are though decisions to be made. Certainly at the company level.
If companies think that the above is worth a 7.6 on the security scale in favour of Microsoft then they either forget to have a detailed birds eye view over time or they're easily satisfied.
Given that, as usual, the promised benefits of migrating to Microsoft's latest and greatest (just not fully available just yet) are historicly proven never delivered at the very beginning but rather more or less at the end after huge investments have already been made. And it looks like significant time will pass between the first and final (complete) delivery of Longhorn. That way it could easily become a five, six year long total business commitment before the end results are in.
I haven't even upgraded to Svc pack 2 on xp.. why?
DRM and other "Shinanigans" MS is placing in
windows other than "upgrades". Longhorn is going
to be even worse on 3rd party developers etc. and
the era of free use on a PC is coming to an end because of MS. Buy Longhorn... NOT!!
Why use the DiDiot as a quote in any article? It is well known that the "Yankee Group" is a mouthpiece for Microsoft. You might as well say that "an MS PR company said..."
Yankee are about as independant of MS as the Inland Revenue are independant of the taxman!