Is Microsoft’s stripped-down ‘Longhorn’ worth waiting for?
Friday, September 10, 2004 - 11:53 AM EDT"Longhorn needs a new name. It's not just because I'm tired of the bovine references and the 'shorthorn' jokes. No, the problem is that the future version of Windows formerly known as Longhorn in many ways won't resemble the Longhorn that Microsoft described last fall at its Professional Developers Conference," Mike Ricciuti writes for CNET News. "Why can't Microsoft--the world's largest software company, with thousands of talented programmers and billions of dollars in the bank--bring the unified storage concept to life?"
"Next year, Apple plans to launch new search tools [Spotlight] as part of the Tiger release of OS X. And the Linux camp isn't far behind: Novell says it's retooling its iFolder software to give its SuSE Linux unified search capabilities,' Ricciuti writes. "The capabilities of these various schemes vary, and details are sketchy. But clearly, Microsoft--which popularized the idea of unified search--will likely lose the race to market with actual product. Now the challenge for the company is to convince customers that Longhorn--or whatever you think we should call it--is still worth waiting for."
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Was it ever worth waiting for Longhorn, even if it did have all of its promised features? Of course, we already have Mac OS X Panther today, we're not stuck with Windows XP, so forgive us for not awaiting the promise of 'Longhorn' with bated breath. Moo.
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Of course, M$ had to popularize the idea otherwise it might never be developed. M$ doesn't actually innovate, they steal, er, um, borrow, from others. Because vendors other than Apple are developing the idea, M$ is free to steal from anyone, and avoid the apprearance of monopolistic practices because "everyone" is developing this technology.