Longhorn features to be chopped? | The Coffeehouse

jkwuc89

Check out:
Microsoft to Gut Longhorn to Make 2006 Delivery Date

Apparently, WinFS and Avalon are the main chopping targets and Longhorn will be more evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

Also check out:
Microsoft overhauls Longhorn plans

jamie

all i want longhorn to do is render using the video card - and look cool

thats avalon and aero ?
i hope they dont axe those

- new file system... zzzz
- new web services? - yawn
- NGSCB? pass

Stick Aero on XP and ill BUY it OVER again
( release it this year as part of Reloaded ( with winmedia 10, music store, etc)

* before all the techy replies - i ask you to remember we've just been through 3 YEARS of security and patching and updates with nothing FUN

Im tired of Macs "looking better" than XP.
Blow Aqua away please... now THAT would be fun! Smiley

phunky_avocado
Dude! It's the (grilled) cheese.

I'm with jamie, give us some eye-candy and not this finger-painting-like stuff with XP themes.

HellSnoopy

I agree too.

compuwhiz7

I'm seriously hoping this doesn't happen, but it may well. WinFS and Avalon would seem to be the most important parts of Longhorn, and, indeed, the most compelling reason to upgrade.

I still will upgrade when Longhorn is released, or, rather, purchase a new computer with it preloaded and then rebuild, but it would be a bummer if this turns out to be the case.

I wonder whether WinFS and Avalon will be released as components in a service pack, or rather in Blackcomb.

Karim
Trapped in a world he never made!

Longhorn to Feature New Color Scheme

REDMOND, WASHINGTON (August 27) - Microsoft Product Managers announced today that they have given up on their ambitious plans for the next version of Windows, known as "Longhorn." At a press conference, Microsoft revealed that Longhorn would be basically Windows XP Service Pack 2, plus a new desktop color scheme.

"We've been listening to our users, and the number one thing we've heard from them is that they are tired of Blue, Silver, and Olive Green," stated the press release. "So Longhorn will feature an entirely new color scheme that is not available in Windows XP, which we are calling 'Puce.' We hope that Puce will bring an entirely new level of enjoyment to the computing eXPerience that is Windows XP."

Microsoft had planned to provide another color scheme for Windows XP, tentatively called "Ecru," but difficulties arose during development of the pale brown color scheme, so it was scrapped in order to meet the 2006 deadline for the release of Longhorn.

VBJB

Karim wrote:
Longhorn to Feature New Color Scheme

REDMOND, WASHINGTON (August 27) - Microsoft Product Managers announced today that they have given up on their ambitious plans for the next version of Windows, known as "Longhorn." At a press conference, Microsoft revealed that Longhorn would be basically Windows XP Service Pack 2, plus a new desktop color scheme.

"We've been listening to our users, and the number one thing we've heard from them is that they are tired of Blue, Silver, and Olive Green," stated the press release. "So Longhorn will feature an entirely new color scheme that is not available in Windows XP, which we are calling 'Puce.' We hope that Puce will bring an entirely new level of enjoyment to the computing eXPerience that is Windows XP."

Microsoft had planned to provide another color scheme for Windows XP, tentatively called "Ecru," but difficulties arose during development of the pale brown color scheme, so it was scrapped in order to meet the 2006 deadline for the release of Longhorn.

I love it! :0)

jonathanh
My mod color is red

We just received a flurry of executive emails explaining the plans - expect them to hit the usual news outlets this afternoon...

jamie

Karim - above post = 10+ Smiley

Jeremy W
that blogging guy

Can't wait, especially since I'm one of the main contributors for a "news outlet" (Lockergnome counts, right? Wink

).

jamie

...it would be great if C9 - every now and then - could scoop Winbeta and news.com

so ... whazz up - i mean - whaz IN??

MisterDonut
The Disco Godfather

jamie wrote:

Im tired of Macs "looking better" than XP.
Blow Aqua away please... now THAT would be fun!

I concur, 100%. if it doesn't look 'cool' to the average home user, Microsoft has 10 strikes against them.

Sampy
This will be the sixth time we have destroyed it and we have become exceedingly efficient at it

jonathanh wrote:
We just received a flurry of executive emails explaining the plans - expect them to hit the usual news outlets this afternoon...

I'm having lunch with some friends in Windows to sort this all out. Exciting times!

EDIT: Lots of hallway conversations going on about this too.

jamie

is this the announcement?
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2004/Aug04/08-27Target2006PR.asp

or is this old..

Jaz
From the depths of Wales I come

Whats going on, this could be very bad.

lars

"and make key elements of the Windows WinFX^TM developer platform in "Longhorn" available for Windows XP and Windows Server^TM 2003."

That's good news.

"Microsoft will deliver a Windows storage subsystem, code-named "WinFS," after the "Longhorn" release."

That is not so good news. Bye bye to WinFS.

Cider
Daze-d & Confused

This could be very good or very bad.

On a good note, making WinFS and WinFX backwardly compatible is FANTASTIC and, if you ask me, Microsoft coming to their senses. It was always a daft, daft notion to make Longhorn so dependant on high hardware specs and the sort of PC that Longhorn was targetting, encompassed by the Athens prototype (64-bit, hugely able DirectX 9 cards, gigantic widescreen monitors, V-O-IP network, etc), is more of a 2010 timeframe.

In terms of users upgrading, you could almost call this an OS upgrade step inbetween XP and Longhorn. XP -> XP w. Longhorn technologies -> Longhorn, a step process to maybe bring in technologies such as Avalon/Aero before having to go whole hog and upgrade to Longhorn.

On a bad note, Windows needs a revolution, and it'll be a shame if Longhorn isn't that.

jamie

re: Windows needs a revolution, and it'll be a shame if Longhorn isn't that.

it does need to said that on a product with 80+% profit margins - how did it get to this?

why hasnt ms literally quadrupled its dev staff?

Everytime i heard "they pulled off people from longhorn to do sp2 - i thought this... WHY?!?!?!

Why didnt they take the 4 billion they just gave back to shareholders - cause they didnt know what to do with it.. and spend it on more developers?

...or can there only be SO many developers on a project?

Jeremy W
that blogging guy

It's not an 80% profit margin. We've been through this before, yet you keep trudging it up.

And, yes, there can only be so many developers on a project. It's called the Law of Diminishing Returns.

When you have 1 developer on a project and you bring in another the productivity is actually more than double what the original guy was doing. You get to 5 developers, and that only doubles what 2 guys were doing. It takes nearly 15 to double the work that 5 guys were doing, but you also need 1-3 managers to manage that team.

Project Management rule #3: resources are finite. Objectives are not. Throwing more resources at a project does not make it happen faster. Defining the objectives does.

jsrfc58

I agree, too, that this news can be taken as a good and a bad sign. It is interesting now to contrast this new information with articles such as this one. Would it be possible to release two versions of Windows/Office...one would be an XP-type upgrade, and another would be a full-blown Longhorn, with Aero, Indigo, etc.? I suppose the logistics of that would be daunting. I think backward compatibility is important (especially when market share is a huge consideration), but at what point does it actually hold you back?

Jeremy W
that blogging guy

There's actually a REALLY good perspective on this from Joe Wilcox (wow, eh Jonathan?!): http://www.microsoftmonitor.com/archives/003652.html

lars

Brooks's Law - "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later" - a result of the fact that the expected advantage from splitting work among N programmers is O(N) (that is, proportional to N), but the complexity and communications cost associated with coordinating and then merging their work is O(N^2) (that is, proportional to the square of N)."

An unfortunate fact of life. You have to see it in effect to really appreciate how devastating it is!

lars

Cider wrote:
On a good note, making WinFS and WinFX backwardly compatible is FANTASTIC and, if you ask me, Microsoft coming to their senses.

I think this more than makes up for the bad news. If it doesn't mean that they will be cutting just about every feature from WinFX in order to get it to run and on time. In any case it was to be expected that the feature set would change over time and not all the goodies would make it. Why would Longhorn be any different to any other piece of software by any other vendor. The only difference is that we know what they started out with.

jamie

re Jeremy: It's not an 80% profit margin. We've been through this before, yet you keep trudging it up.

Youre right.. it's not 80% - it's 86%

"Microsoft's 86% Windows profit margin draws criticism from consumer groups

Consumer advocates have criticised the scale of software Microsoft Corp's 86% profit margin on Windows, which runs nine out of 10 personal computers worldwide."

http://www.ananova.com/business/story/sm_711827.html?menu=

Jeremy W
that blogging guy

"According to consumer advocacy groups". Yes. You may want to read this light analysis of the MS balance sheet: http://www.microsoftmonitor.com/archives/002775.html.

The fact of the matter is that the "profits" figures do not take into account burn, R&D or post-launch costs of maintaining a product.

They simply taken into account a division's costs and income, something that is always misleading.

The last indepth look I'd seen of actual profits on Windows was in the 40% range, which is actually a lot lower than some other tech companies.

From your article, the reason SAP's profit margins are so low is because:

1. They are primarily a consulting company where they don't get paid until they make a sale (always a costly business)
2. They sell less than 10,000 actual units a year.