Windows Server 2003 SP2 RC2 here, will Longhorn arrive on time?

Stan Beer
Wednesday, 15 November 2006 14:56

Opinion and Analysis

Pardon this old sceptic for asking an obvious question, but now that Microsoft has finally delivered Windows Vista a couple of years late, should we take it on faith that Longhorn will be served up on our tables sometime before the end of 2007 as promised?

These are the facts. Robert Muglia, senior vice president, server and tools, at Microsoft, was strutting his stuff at Microsoft's TechEd forum in Barcelona yesterday talking up some of the software company's latest achievements.

Among the achievements touted by a boss of one of the actual money making divisions at Microsoft, were two pre-final release products and the promise of a beta of Longhorn in the first half of 2007.

Alright then, I'm quite sure that systems administrators will be jumping for joy at the news that the Windows Powershell command line and scripting tool is now getting closer to going gold with the unveiling of the latest release candidate, RC2.

They're probably even more excited by the news that Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2, RC2 has also been announced, with the promise of the final release to market in the first quarter of 2007. What's more, a Beta 3 version of Longhorn has been promised sometime in the first half of 2007 and the final product before 2008.

Now can we back up a little here? Microsoft will not even deliver the final version of Windows 2003 Server SP2 before the end of first quarter of 2007. The best Microsoft can promise for its successor Longhorn is a Beta 3 version before the end of the first half.

Taking the above into account and based on the previous delivery performance of Microsoft, is there anyone prepared to offer up a realistic timeline for Longhorn? Perhaps now that Microsoft has finally delivered on Vista, users will forgive future slippage. Perhaps not but hey what are you going to do, go open source?