News MS Delays Longhorn until 2006?

From el Reg:


Microsoft has put back the release of Longhorn until 2006, says Mary-Jo Foley of Microsof****ch, basing her reasoning on presentations at last week's Microsoft worldwide partner conference, where company execs "casually slipped into their presentations that Longhorn is three years away from debut."

The reasoning is impeccable. If Longhorn is 'real' 2005 (as opposed to fake 2005, which is RTM New Year's Eve), then it's for the Q4 market and it should now be less than two years away. If it's three years away, then it's for the Q4 2006 market. Microsoft is not yet waving Powerpoints with 2006 on them, but it's customary for company execs to drop these verbal signposts prior to the reformulation of roadmaps.

But a 2006 date has consequences, knocking back other products and widening the gap into which Microsoft might feel the need to drop interim releases. Pushing back the client may make the decision on whether or not there's going to be a Longhorn Server or not simpler.

Full story here. Of course, the real reason for the release slippage is that they've had their source code stolen

 

That is a long ole' time away. Now as far as I remember Longhorn was meant to be Windows NT 5.5 and a minor update to Windows XP. Blackcomb was meant to be the next major release. Has this strategy changed?

 

Ahhh, good.

In fact, why not scrap it entirely. TC is a really bad idea for the internet and the computing industry anyhow. It's a really bad enforcement of dated buisness models.

Alaric.