Jupiter Predicts Longhorn Won't Ship Until 2006

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August 20, 2003 (11:19 AM EDT)

Jupiter Predicts Longhorn Won't Ship Until 2006

Longhorn, Microsoft's successor to Windows XP, will launch later than sooner, and won't be generally available until sometime in the first half of 2006, predicted a report released Wednesday by Jupiter Research's Microsoft Monitor.

But the delay won't necessarily be a negative thing, said Joe Wilcox, a senior analyst with Microsoft Monitor and the author of the report.

Microsoft, which at one point had said it would release Longhorn in 2004, has pushed back delivery until 2005. At last spring's TechEd 2003, for instance, Paul Flessner, senior vice president of Microsoft's Server Platform Division, laid out a roadmap for upcoming operating systems and other software, and included Longhorn in the '05 category.

A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed that timeframe Wednesday. "While it's too early to get specific, Microsoft is committed to Longhorn in 2005."

Wilcox sees it differently.

"We won't see Longhorn in 2005," said Wilcox. "While Microsoft will probably try to get it out for the holiday season in '05, I just don't see that happening. And I don't think I'm going out on a limb here."

Among the reasons Wilcox points to in the delay of the next-generation operating system is the revamped file system that Longhorn will institute. Longhorn will rely on a new file storage structure, called WinFS -- for Windows Future Storage -- that will supersede the current FAT and NTFS file systems used by Microsoft's operating systems. WinFS will use technology derived from servers to manage data on desktops via a relational database.

The file system change means that Microsoft will have its work cut out for it to put Longhorn in place, and make sure it's compatible with Microsoft's own applications, third-party applications, and older software.

"This will be a dramatic upgrade as the file system transitions to WinFS," Wilcox said. "It's as big a deal as the move from DOS to Windows 95. To line up all its ducks, Microsoft has incentive to do a long development cycle and extensive public testing of Longhorn so customers and partners, especially developers, can get their applications in sync with WinFS.

"But I also don't think the delay's a big deal," Wilcox said. "There's plenty of XP momentum to carry the whole ecosystem built around Windows forward to 2006."

Wilcox cited numbers to back up his take on Longhorn. Currently, older editions of Windows used in businesses outnumber XP by nearly three to one, leaving lots of room for a continued, and protracted, migration to Windows XP. "Businesses are just on the edge of adoption for XP," Wilcox said.

Other evidence that plays to a later-rather-than-sooner prediction for Longhorn include past time spans between upgrades to Microsoft Office and those between versions of the Redmond, Wash.-based developer's server software.

Microsoft has promised to create Longhorn editions of its most popular software, including its Office productivity suite. Office 2003, Wilcox notes, is just coming out next month, with retail editions selling in October. "Microsoft wants at least a 24-month cycle between Offices. The best case, then, is that a Longhorn Office ships at the end of 2005. But I think they'll want to get more out of [Office 2003] than that, which means 2006."

Although the Longhorn edition of Office could conceivably ship as much as three to six months after the operating system itself, Wilcox pointed to the past for proof that that's unlikely. "Longhorn will require applications [written for it]. When Microsoft released Windows 95, it had Office 95 available that day."

Microsoft comments about delivering a Longhorn server is yet another hint that the OS won't appear until '06. Microsoft Windows Server 2003 just released in April, 2003, Wilcox noted, and the company typically releases new server software every three years. That puts Longhorn squarely in the first half of 2006.

"Look for Longhorn in the first half of 2006," Wilcox said. "Even with the remaining momentum in Windows XP, I don't think Microsoft can afford to push it much beyond that."