SEATTLE -- Microsoft has synchronized development efforts for the client and server versions of Longhorn, the code name for the next Windows release, a Microsoft executive says.
"Today, the Longhorn client and the Longhorn server are tied together," Jim Allchin, vice president of Microsoft's platforms group, said in a keynote presentation at the company's annual Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) here this week.
Server Plans
Longhorn's release is still a ways out. Microsoft executives have pointed to 2006 as the release year for the product. However, in his presentation Allchin did not give a target ship date for the client or server versions of the software.
Previously, after hedging on whether it would even release a Longhorn server, Microsoft said it will introduce the server some time after the client release.
Allchin did not clarify whether aligning development of the Longhorn client and server also means the versions will ship simultaneously. Analysts with Directions on Microsoft attending the event say they still expect the server release to follow the client, since it will need additional testing.
A Microsoft spokesperson later confirmed the analysts' expectations.
"Even with synchronized development cycles, a major release of the Windows server and client will almost always ship with some time interval difference," the spokesperson says. How much difference is still being determined, she adds.
"The important thing to understand is that server development, as you come down the home stretch to release, takes a little more bake time than client products," she adds.
What's Next
A first Longhorn beta is still planned for early next year, Allchin said.
He also gave an overview of client and server software that will precede Longhorn.
On the client side, Microsoft plans to ship Windows XP SP 2 midyear. Also scheduled to ship year are an updated Windows Media Player; Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005; Windows CE 5.0; Windows XP Media Center Edition with support for Media Center Extender; and Windows XP 64-Bit Edition for 64-Bit Extended Systems, Allchin said. Microsoft's hardware partners are also getting ready to ship Portable Windows Media Center devices, he added.
On the server side, Microsoft plans to ship this year Windows Server 2003 64-bit Edition for Extended Systems; Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1; Windows Small Business Server 2003 SP1; and Virtual Server 2005. Next year's server road map offers a Windows Server 2003 Update; Windows Small Business Server 2003 Update; and a new Windows Storage Server, code-named Storm, Allchin said.
Coaxing the Crowd
All WinHEC attendees will get a preview version of Longhorn for development purposes. Software Developers got an earlier preview version last year. Allchin gave the audience of hardware makers a sneak peek at the operating system's graphics capabilities by opening several windows of moving images. On a Windows XP PC, the images got jittery and the video memory quickly maxed out; on the Longhorn system, the images were fluent and the system was able to run the Quake video game in the background.
Allchin also showed a file migration wizard, designed to make it easier for users to move files from a Windows XP system to a new PC running Longhorn. Users will be able to migrate using a special USB cable or over a network. Allchin also showed how Longhorn can be installed from a USB flash memory drive. Ultimately, a migration should be simple and not take a weekend, he said.
Allchin urged the hardware makers to work with Microsoft on products that offer great user experiences.
"Today the PC is often still considered just a tool, but together we need to make it a lot more than that. We need to make it a path to experiences," he said. "Experience computing, what's that about? It is not about speeds and feeds, it's about sights and sounds."
Indeed, Microsoft christened its previous Windows release "XP" for experience, but that's just a small piece of what software can do, Allchin said. "Yes, we called the product experience because we sort of had the image of what we wanted to do here, but that was just the start," he said.
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