Microsoft’s Longhorn fantasy vs. Apple’s Mac OS X reality
Tuesday, September 14, 2004 - 10:02 AM EDT"After months of speculation, Microsoft has released XP Service Pack 2 in order to fix problems in its operating system. Amid reports of problems and some successes, I recommend prudent users continue to wait before deploying this service pack. It has security holes and its own set of problems. Meanwhile, the company is pulling features from its next operating system, code-named Longhorn, in an effort to get it on the street by 2006," Charlie Paschal reports for The State.
The Register has reported, "Two mainstays of Windows Longhorn will be 'decoupled' from the 2006 release, with Microsoft dropping the WinFS storage and query system. Originally intended to be a full-blown replacement for the NTFS file system that put a database at the heart of Windows, WinFS will now be available as an add-on no sooner than 2007 for Longhorn, XP and Windows 2003. Or to be more precise - and here is another new piece of jargon for Redmond watchers - WinFS will be released as an 'out-of-band add-on pack.' Got that?"
"A cut-down version of Avalon, minus the compositor and the new device driver model will be backported to Windows XP too. Microsoft had already pledged to backport the next generation of middleware APIs, code named Indigo, to XP. All of which has left developers questioning the necessity of a 'big bang.' 'If WinFX (including Avalon and Indigo) are going to be available for WinXP and Win2003. What is going to be the point of Longhorn?' wrote one developer on Microsoft's bulletin boards," The Register reported.
This is confusing to MacDailyNews, since we remember reporting in June 2003 that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had written in an email to Microsoft employees, "Some way off in the future lies a generation of technology that Microsoft promises will change the lives of every computer user. Codenamed Longhorn, it involves a complete revamp of the company's two core product lines - the Windows operating system and Office productivity suite. It promises to bring greater ease, reliability and security. In short, it will be 'the next quantum leap in computing, which will put us years ahead of any other product on the market.'"
Tech writer Paul Thurrott tried to spin this mess when he wrote, "For a broad range of power users and technology enthusiasts, Microsoft's Longhorn promises have been severely diminished, even if it happened for good reasons. But I think it's important to keep one thing in perspective: Longhorn will still be a major Windows release, on both the client and the server, and with recent improvements to Mac OS X and Linux doing little to nip away at XP's technological and usability leads, Longhorn will likely still stand at the apex of personal computing when its ships. Put succinctly, though the kitchen sink approach is gone, Longhorn remains the OS technology to watch."
John C. Dvorak is calling for Tinhorn, errr, Longhorn to be renamed, suggesting "how about XP 3? XP, XP SP1, XP SP2, XP 2 (there will be one! Now for sure.) Hence, Longhorn is XP 3. It's 'polite,' but yet jabbing, rather than a grand revolution, it is just a creep-up...'"
MacDailyNews Take: So which is it, folks? Is this gutted 'Longhorn' "the next quantum leap in computing that will change the lives of every computer user and likely still stand at the apex of personal computing when its ships" or is it more as BusinessWeek's Jay Greene describes below?
The Longhorn mess points to a recurring problem at Microsoft: Hype often gets way ahead of the company's computer science. "The priority is more on marketing than development," says Alan Paller, research director at the SANS Institute, a computer security training organization. That doesn't bode well for a company that hopes to lead the computer industry in the 21st century.
With Longhorn, as with other past products, Microsoft talked up a technology it couldn't quite deliver. It set out to overhaul a central piece of desktop computing -- the way users search and store information. But it proved too difficult a challenge -- especially at a time when it is under tremendous pressure to make its current version of Windows safe from a plague of viruses, worms, spam, and pop-up ads.
Some in the industry believe that Microsoft could learn from one of its rivals -- Apple Computer Co. The Mac maker does a great job of keeping both its new hardware and software under wraps, then thrilling its fans with whizzy breakthroughs -- something it did once again in late August with the unveiling of its gorgeous new iMac computer. In contrast, when Microsoft doesn't deliver on its promises, it loses credibility with PC makers, software publishers, and customers.
Last spring, as the first signs of Longhorn delays emerged, techies began referring to the operating system as Longwait. Now, with WinFS cut, critics have renamed the software Shorthorn. The name-calling poses no threat to Microsoft's hegemony. But its stumble with Longhorn gives rivals an opening at a time when Microsoft needs to get its business revving again.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Mac users, of course, will have cutting-edge search technology with the upcoming Mac OS X 10.4 'Tiger' which actually will ship in the first half of 2005 with Spotlight, a radically new and lightning fast way to find anything saved on your personal computer. Email messages, contacts and calendars, along with files and folders, will all show up in Spotlight results. Find out more about Mac OS X Tiger's Spotlight here. If you really want to stand at the apex of personal computing, you need to use a Mac, of course. Right now that apex is known as Mac OS X Panther featuring Quartz Extreme and everything! Available, and in use on millions of personal computers, today. Imagine that.
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but OS 9 and before were lame under the hood, even if they were easy to use.
Ah, if only Shorthorn would run natively on a Mac. Then I could join in the heroic fight against viruses, adware, malware, and all of that.