Microsoft, Are You Crazy?

If you think about Windows Longhorn, what do you think about? You should be thinking about WinFS, Indigo and Avalon. WinFS being the database-like layer on top of the NTFS filesystem (“make finding files as fast as finding websites on Google”); Indigo being the new all-in communication package; and Avalon being the new vector-based graphics engine (no more bitmaps, windows and widgets can scale as much as you want).

That’s great. But what’s Microsoft doing now Well, they’re doing a couple of things. First off, they’re dropping WinFS for Longhorn. Personally I’d find this the most important feature to keep, but OK. Second, they will make Indigo and Avalon available for Windows XP and 2003 aswell. That’s great isn’t it? Yes, that’s great, but incredibly stupid. For our sake, that’s all what Longhorn is. It’s Longhorn without the Longhorn.

Why would I want to buy Longhorn now? Because it makes me buy a new 3Ghz PC?

Edit: A video about why this change was made, just came out on Channel 9

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 28th, 2004 at 12:41 by Zef You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

  • http://zef.cc/~jaap/ Jaap

    Well I’m not completely aware of all the things going around Longhorn, but I believe it is now scheduled for 2006/2007. As windows XP was released in what, 2001?. That gives them a lot of time to work on new things. Surely they would improve some things, wouldn’t you think? Maybe it is not so much new features, maybe they just got rid of legacy code and restructured the software. That does take a lot of time, but not any new features. It does give you a better platform to develop on in the future. If I have some time I will dive into this subjet a bit. Did microsoft release any details on it at all? (knowing microsoft a tiny bit, probably not). About releasing Indigo and Avalon on the XP and 2003 platform. This will test their software by the bigger public, and when Longhorn is released the software probably matured and you have the allround stable feature rich (resource sucking) platform you always wanted. Well maybe that makes a little bit more sense hehe.

  • http://zef.cc/~jaap/ Jaap

    Well I’m not completely aware of all the things going around Longhorn, but I believe it is now scheduled for 2006/2007. As windows XP was released in what, 2001?. That gives them a lot of time to work on new things. Surely they would improve some things, wouldn’t you think? Maybe it is not so much new features, maybe they just got rid of legacy code and restructured the software. That does take a lot of time, but not any new features. It does give you a better platform to develop on in the future. If I have some time I will dive into this subjet a bit. Did microsoft release any details on it at all? (knowing microsoft a tiny bit, probably not). About releasing Indigo and Avalon on the XP and 2003 platform. This will test their software by the bigger public, and when Longhorn is released the software probably matured and you have the allround stable feature rich (resource sucking) platform you always wanted. Well maybe that makes a little bit more sense hehe.

  • Zef

    Sure there will be improvements, but the new things really would make the wait worthwhile. Microsoft released a huge load of information on the new stuff. Search google or have a look at http://msdn.microsoft.com/longhorn/

  • Zef

    Sure there will be improvements, but the new things really would make the wait worthwhile. Microsoft released a huge load of information on the new stuff. Search google or have a look at http://msdn.microsoft.com/longhorn/

  • http://zef.cc/~jaap/ Jaap

    Well from what I understand is that DCE will not be backported to XP, thus making Avalon less powerfull (it won’t have all the transparency effects nor the rendering power). Plus Avalon will be in beta when tested on XP. From what I can see it is only interresting for developers to start using the new stuff. WinFS will be in beta when longhorn ships so you can still try it out. And only a year later it will be complete. Releasing Indigo and actually the whole WinFX seems quite a good idea because it will give developers a chance to get to know the new API.

    It seems to me that microsoft will just give you a sneak preview of everything to come. The true power of it all will come in longhorn.

    Besides that, I don’t think a lot of people will actually start to use it. I mean how many .NET applications does everybody use at the moment?

    I don’t think Microsoft is crazy, so to speak.

  • http://zef.cc/~jaap/ Jaap

    Well from what I understand is that DCE will not be backported to XP, thus making Avalon less powerfull (it won’t have all the transparency effects nor the rendering power). Plus Avalon will be in beta when tested on XP. From what I can see it is only interresting for developers to start using the new stuff. WinFS will be in beta when longhorn ships so you can still try it out. And only a year later it will be complete. Releasing Indigo and actually the whole WinFX seems quite a good idea because it will give developers a chance to get to know the new API.

    It seems to me that microsoft will just give you a sneak preview of everything to come. The true power of it all will come in longhorn.

    Besides that, I don’t think a lot of people will actually start to use it. I mean how many .NET applications does everybody use at the moment?

    I don’t think Microsoft is crazy, so to speak.

  • Zef Hemel

    Maybe not so much crazy, but it really surprised me that they’re doing this. I can understand it, but, well, what made Longhorn attractive to me is no longer really part of Longhorn.

  • Zef Hemel

    Maybe not so much crazy, but it really surprised me that they’re doing this. I can understand it, but, well, what made Longhorn attractive to me is no longer really part of Longhorn.

  • Spaceman-Spiff

    I think Microsoft should do more incremental windows releases, like Windows XP 1, 1.1, 1.2, etc, instead of one big release every 4-5 years. They should do like Linux and OS X. This way people who just bought windows xp or 2k won’t get all the security bugs in the first version or not having to spend a few hours just for installing patches, etc right after the installation.

  • Spaceman-Spiff

    I think Microsoft should do more incremental windows releases, like Windows XP 1, 1.1, 1.2, etc, instead of one big release every 4-5 years. They should do like Linux and OS X. This way people who just bought windows xp or 2k won’t get all the security bugs in the first version or not having to spend a few hours just for installing patches, etc right after the installation.

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