This afternoon, a Microsoft spokesperson gave Tom’s Hardware Guide some initial background information regarding which technologies will be represented in the company’s release of beta 1 of Longhorn Server, which now appears on schedule for this summer.
Partial preliminary feature list for Windows Longhorn beta 1
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What is meant by this? Are they talking about image based setup like OSX or is it something else? Mabye system setup for enterprise deployment like *nix?
I don’t know why Microsoft didn’t released winfs ,but MSN toolbar looks great…
http://img185.echo.cx/img185/8254/msnsearch0yw.jpg
This is making me realize: This is a really long beta-cycle… Doesn’t this mean more than a 6 month beta cycle for them?
Best quote, and one all of you Linux-loving Longhorn-bashers should learn: “There’s an old rule of thumb,” Cherry told us: “You can have quality, or you can have features, or you can have a closing ship date, but you can’t have all three.”
If you argue, then obviously you’re not a software developer, and have no say in the matter.
personaly i dont mind if microsoft takes there sweet time, it just means it wil be really polished and a good tight nit pachage and thats way better than a buggy final release
Linux doesn’t’ care about ship dates and bugs though there are generally long gone by the time 1.0 gets released. unlike say SP3 for win2k, which needed yet another SP to deal with errors.
MSFT doesn’t give you a ship date, or features, or quality. So what is there excuse? Longhorn is missing all the big stuff that was supposed to make it great. Now it’s win XP with avalon.
@ poundsmack.
MSFt has never produced a first run product that was stable.(aka win 95 vs win 98. Win NT4.1 / win2K.
Long horn wont be any different. I was really hoping Longhorn had a lot of really cool features that would of put it above everyone else. Those features are now on the cutting room floor. managed code API? nope that’s gone, WinFS nope it’s gone, Avalon( being back-ported to a 7 year old product, MSH, being shipped with other apps, dropping direct support for the awful win32 api, nope looks like it’s going right in.
MSFT had there chance. 80,000 developers can’t do in 7+ years what Apple’s 11,000 did in ~4.(time from next bought to OS X10.1, 10.0 I consider a beta) Now Apple did screw up copland horribly. Maybe Longhorn will be to MSFT what Copland was to Apple.
You really should learn about OSX’s history!
It was developed under the name Rhapsody on x86 as NeXT was x86 and it took Apple sweet time. Switching kernels back and fourth, eventually ending up shipping a product that should still have been in BETA stage when it was released, OSX 10.0
Considering how long it took for Apple to develop OSX after the failure of copland they didn’t do a very good job at it compared to Microsoft’s Longhorn development since Apple had full control over their hardware unlike Microsoft.
“If you argue you’re wrong…”
Thanks God, thought you stopped giving direct revelations a while ago…
I think the closest Unix cliche to that would read like this:
“You can have quality, or you can have features.”
Notice the lack of caring about a ship date, and since it only has two binary variables it gives us a real easy to apply outlook on life
.
I know, I just couldn’t resist tweaking his statement; especially after he made claims to omniscience!
Woah! I gotta say that the assertion that Microsoft is having trouble with this development because they don’t control the hardware is way out of line. Microsoft is not having difficulty developing the parts that talk to the hardware, nor is there a buggy user experience to speak of in regards to hardware/driver difficulties.
If I run “sudo rm -Rf /” on a unix system, it will run the same regardless of hardware. Whey you’re dealing with components of the operating system high enough up, hardware has very little to do with their operation. Microsoft is not having trouble implementing WinFS due to the inability to support a wide range of hardware. There are interfaces throughout the system which normalize data flow in and out. WinFS has no need to know how to tell a hard drive to write data, or read it. The kernel, and drivers will take care of that fine.
“You really should learn about OSX’s history!”
You should really learn about how computers work before spreading misinformation!
While I agree that Microsoft has yet to fulfill their promises on an initial release* I think that Longhorn will be different:
1.) Most of their past mistakes were including unfinished features or using systems they hadn’t thought through (or performance hack systems, whichever way you look at it).
2.) They’re getting a lot of technical competition that was lacking before. Until about 2000 or so there wasn’t a lot of “hey we have a end-user stable GUI OS with most every-day apps!” There was:
a.) Mac, which lacked a real OS (no memory protection).
b.) Unix, which cost more than you value your life at.
c.) Linux, which wasn’t nearly as nice as today (this is actually conjecture as I started with it in 2002).
d.) BSD, which is still struggling to make in-roads with desktop people; but I hope it is happening because fbsd deserves it!
e.) OS/2, which was basically dead; thanks to Microsoft.
f.) BeOS, which didn’t run on x86 until too late; woops.
Did I miss anything?
Now, they have desktop linux saying “hey, dude, I’m Free and you can figure me out!” They have Apple saying “hey, I have a real OS now; and I’m easier to use than Windows!” They have google saying “hey, I’m gonna start destroying rich clients wherever possible ensuring cross-platform use; even cross-computer use because the computer doesn’t store your data!” (this hasn’t happened much beyond e-mail, but analysts have people excited).
Also, Microsoft is a much older company now. I hope that Bill Gates has grown up a little since his “Open Letter to Hobbyists.” And well, they keep Balmer on his leash most of the time.
Anyway, my point is that I think Longhorn will deliver what it delivers; instead of half-delivering what it promised. This is good.
*
1.) Win95 lacked stability.
2.) Win98 lacked stability and speed.
3.) WinME lacked stability, speed, and Microsoft approval.
4.) Win2K lacked most of the features promised and was just a highly improved NT. This was a good release. The inclusing of msconfig would have been nice though!
5.) WinXP was a bad Win2K. Thanks for puttin msconfig back!
Anyway, this is a Windows thread; it’s innappropriate to yack about Linux in here unless it’s in a context where it makes good sense.
PS- I was tempted to sign my nick as peregrine.
Ok, I’m no expert but here’s what you have wrong:
NeXT stations weren’t x86.
NeXT was not Apple; NeXT was Jobs after Apple booted him.
OS X, while awful when first released, was muuuch better than OS 9.
Apple wasn’t so set to go Unix from the beginning as you act. They actually even considered Be for a while.
I get most of that mostly right Apple lovers?
Is it shipping yet?
Reminds me of a certain other OS company. “Two more weeks…” (two more months, two more years…)
If it’s not shipping, it’s not news; it doesn’t exist.
–EyeAm
5.) WinXP was a bad Win2K. Thanks for puttin msconfig back!
You can use XP’s msconfig on a w2k box. Just an FYI.
Partial preliminary feature list for Windows Longhorn beta 1
In other words:
Another bunch of promises MS won’t be able to keep, but will be good enough to make you wait a bit longer and believe that this time, yes this one time, after all the many times they’ve been winding you up (Win 1.0, Win 3.0/3.1, Win NT, Win 95, Win 98, Win ME, Win 2000, Win XP) Microsoft will deliver on their promises.
Keep on dreaming.
Until about 2000 or so there wasn’t a lot of “hey we have a end-user stable GUI OS with most every-day apps!” There was:
a.) Mac, which lacked a real OS (no memory protection).
b.) Unix, which cost more than you value your life at.
c.) Linux, which wasn’t nearly as nice as today (this is actually conjecture as I started with it in 2002).
d.) BSD, which is still struggling to make in-roads with desktop people; but I hope it is happening because fbsd deserves it!
e.) OS/2, which was basically dead; thanks to Microsoft.
f.) BeOS, which didn’t run on x86 until too late; woops.
Did I miss anything?
g.) Amiga. Which is ¡¡¡¡Teh 0WNZ0R!!! and will soon take over the market*
*And will come bundled with Duke Nukem Forever
Best quote, and one all of you Linux-loving Longhorn-bashers should learn: “There’s an old rule of thumb,” Cherry told us: “You can have quality, or you can have features, or you can have a closing ship date, but you can’t have all three.”
While the statement is true, the “Linux-loving Longhorn bashers” thing is a crock. Microsoft wouldn’t trade the ship date for quality. They haven’t in the past,and they won’t in the future. Why do you think every Microsoft release requires a fistfull of service packs and patches before the kinks are worked out? Besides, it makes no sense to single out Linux developers, because OSS folks are infamous for their “we’ll ship it when its done” attitude.
The real reason Longhorn is taking so long is:
a) The Windows codebase is enormous and overly baroque.
b) Longhorn is just too damn ambitious.
Longhorn has all the makings of the “second system effect”. NT worked pretty well, so they wanted to throw most of it away and put in all the cool stuff they could think of. I mean, just look at the initial Longhorn features list: new programming language, new graphics system, new GUI toolkit, new storage model, new communications subsystem, etc.
Now, contrast Microsoft’s overpromising and under-delivery to Apple’s consistent progress on OS X. Apple has released five new versions in as many years, and Tiger already has a lot of what Longhorn was supposed to have. By the time Longhorn comes out, they’ll be on MacOS 10.5, and things will just get comical.
You wrote:
You really should learn about OSX’s history!
It was developed under the name Rhapsody on x86 as NeXT was x86 and it took Apple sweet time. Switching kernels back and fourth, eventually ending up shipping a product that should still have been in BETA stage when it was released, OSX 10.0
Considering how long it took for Apple to develop OSX after the failure of copland they didn’t do a very good job at it compared to Microsoft’s Longhorn development since Apple had full control over their hardware unlike Microsoft.
First off, between NeXTSTEP 3.1 to Openstep 4.2 there were roughly two dozen main engineers writing the entire operating system.
Software Quality Assurance which I was a member totalled around 35 more members.
Consulting Engineers and System Engineers on-site, around the world, totalled no more than 100 in number.
The entire company size was 300 personnel, on staff after hardware was killed.
The total number of full-time employees, over the entire lifetime at NeXT was 1500.
How do I know this?
As a indefinite contractor at NeXT I was number 1500 before the company was merging with Apple. I got the dubious distinction of being the last regular-full-time NeXT Employee and working inside Professional Services [moved there due to potential uncertainty of the merging of NeXT SQA and Apple SQA] knows a bit about the size of the team working at Apple.
At Apple we cut the 10,000 world wide employees to just over 5,000 when Steve became iCEO.
Over time it has ramped back up past 10,000 employees, but the largest single department was IT [not engineering] and it comprised of over 500 Employees, at Apple.
The main team that Apple has architecting and developing OS X is in the several hundreds, not 11,000.
Throwing out the false numbers for Microsoft with over 80,000 developers and bring it down to a realistic 10% or 8,000 engineers it is clear that the skill sets per engineer at Apple versus those at Microsoft are no comparison.
Knowing several people who have worked for Microsoft who wouldn’t have even gotten through the front doors at NeXT let alone Apple I can tell you Linux developers will have a greater shot at working for Apple, because of their diverse UNIX backgrounds and intimate knowledge of GCC.
Either way, we can whip out our digital gonads all we want but for a commercial company with over $40 Billion in the Bank it is clear they did not make the money based upon quality, but on the thin line of ethical practices that has seen many court cases along the way.
IBM learned the hard way and so will Microsoft.
Linux is in a good position to continue to grow and be refined–no one expects it to be OS X but already acknowledge, outside of the gaming areas, it is better than XP/Win2k.
Now if X.org can get Cairo and all the PDF primitives through X-Server and meet their lists of features and stability, expect both GNOME and KDE to continue to accelerate in their adoption of desktops.
OS X will only help sell Linux on x86 and vice versa.
Linux is already in the Enterprise.
With OS X working its way into the Enterprise it is just a matter of time when Linux and OS X coordinate to make services more interoperable and both go after Windows Server in the Enterprise and XP on the Desktop.
All 3 will be in the x86 space. Apple in its own custom x86 space, but with Intel comes a broader group of device driver companies willing to develop for OS X.
IBM will continue to push Linux into PPC within server, gaming and embedded systems.
Microsoft can live off their bank accounts for several years–they should have taken the option to break into 3 separate companies and make themselves more agile. That maneuver will cost them, dearly.
Going after SONY in the gaming market is humorous with IBM being the chip provider for all 3 major gaming systems.
If Apple releases a Gaming API system for 10.5 Leopard you bet Microsoft will be worried.
Whether Apple releases a CoreGaming API is up in the air, but I wouldn’t bet against it.
How come people think XP was a bad OS? XP is way better than Win2k from what I have seen…it just runs!! well so do the viruses and malware and so on…they just run…but damn XP is just stable as hell!!! It runs very very good and fast and I dont see any problems with it other than the security holes! I mean I can be really productive in it. I got thru university without getting too deep into Linux because I can almost do what I need to to get the projects done.
Do you have ANY idea what you are talking about?
managed code API? nope that’s gone,
Uh, .NET? .NET 2.0 framework will be included with Longhorn.
WinFS nope it’s gone
Will be in beta when Longhorn comes out.
Avalon( being back-ported to a 7 year old product
Making it available to some of their existing products is a BAD thing????
MSH, being shipped with other apps,
And? MSH will be in Longhorn still.
dropping direct support for the awful win32 api, nope looks like it’s going right in.
What? They were never going to drop support for Win32 api. They have to support it.
“streamlined and task-oriented management”
Nobody can figure out how to use the mass of menus and dialog boxes in Windows 2003 Server, so we’re putting it all in MMCs – like we had to do with Group Policy.
Someday we’ll figure out how to be that “intuitive” thing we always get credit for…
<MSH, being shipped with other apps,>
<<And? MSH will be in Longhorn still.>>
No it won’t.
http://www.betanews.com/article/No_New_Command_Line_for_Longhorn/11…
>> No it won’t.
Yes, it will. At least, it is still planned.
Read the article where this rumour really came out (microsoft-watch). This is what is said:
“We are changing the command line environment in Windows using a new object-oriented command line technology, code-named ‘Monad,’ that will exceed what has been delivered in Linux and Unix for many years,” said Muglia in the interview. “It (Monad) will take three to five years to fully develop and deliver.”
Did he say it will not be in Longhorn? NO.
In fact, if you watch a very recent interview with the main Monad guy on channel9, he says the same thing. He goes even further to say that monad WILL be in longhorn, just not 100% what they plan. Just like say.. Firefox.. has certain features set for 1.1, some for 1.5 and some for 2.0, MS has a roadmap with features for each version.
However, a version of monad will be in Longhorn.
// Best quote, and one all of you Linux-loving Longhorn-bashers should learn: “There’s an old rule of thumb,” Cherry told us: “You can have quality, or you can have features, or you can have a closing ship date, but you can’t have all three.” //
True. You can have one or two of those in conventional use. However, there is also the case where you get none. That’s what everyone is talking about here; it’s late, shedding features, and the quality is dubious right now. Server 2003 was good, but 2000 was better engineered than XP, too.
I have to agree with those who say that MS can take their time on Longhorn. Fact is that my money isn’t burning a hole in my pocket, and I’m happy using Windows 2K for another couple of years. OS X, on the other hand, has gone through 5 releases and still doesn’t have the base of applications that Win2K has.
“unlike say SP3 for win2k, which needed yet another SP to deal with errors.”
Are you saying that Linux and its various distributions don’t carry their equilevent of a service pack? You mean there was never a need for a security fix for, say, Linux kernel, never bug fixes for a release of, say, GCC, etc.?
“Long horn wont be any different.”
It’s always nice and reassuring to know there are psychics out there that already played with Longhorn final version before even it’s developers. While you’re playing with that crystal ball, do you mind letting me know what’s Longhorn’s market name? I’m dying to know, you know?
Longhorn is being developed under what Microsoft’s claims to be a different corporate culture and different goals. So it’s hard to compare with older Windows versions. Especially that unlike older Windows versions, Microsoft seems more willing to boot previously hyped-up features for the sake of quality. And unlike previous versions of Windows, Microsoft is also willing to keep Longhorn in development while it’s already breaching the 4th birthday of Windows XP.
“MSFT had there chance. 80,000 developers can’t do in 7+ years what Apple’s 11,000 did in ~4.(time from next bought to OS X10.1, 10.0 I consider a beta)”
Erm, OS X 10.0 couldn’t even burn CDs and play DVDs. Not to mention, it was dog slow. It was a good, albeit expensive, beta release. Even Apple realize that and gave out 10.1 free.
And now, for the best one:
“MSFT doesn’t give you a ship date, or features, or quality.” right before you called it, “win XP with avalon”.
It is, at best, at most optimistic, Microsoft would release Longhorn in a year. Why, why should it have a complete feature list, not to mention “quality”? Since you hate Microsoft so much, shouldn’t you be happy that Microsoft have no sense of the word “ship date”? At least conservative, Longhorn would be shipped 5 years after Windows XP.
No other OS bothered to take advantage of that.
… policy compliance platform … streamlined and task-oriented management … image-based setup … scalable … infrastructure robustness … transactional file system and registry … cross-organizational rights management.
You just gotta love marketing… When I read things like this my mind intreprets it as “bla bla bla bla”.
@Tom
“You can have quality, or you can have features, or you can have a closing ship date, but you can’t have all three.”
Sure you can just have a look at MacOSX.
@ Rayiner Hashem
Why do you think every Microsoft release requires a fistfull of service packs and patches before the kinks are worked out?
Because either there’s found a lot of vulnerabillties in MS products or they did the job not good the first time ,i think both are valid.
NT worked pretty well
Pretty? Or rock solid?
I mean, just look at the initial Longhorn features list: new programming language, new graphics system, new GUI toolkit, new storage model, new communications subsystem, etc.
What’s going to be included finally?I agree there’s a lot on the *initial* list.But all that is messaged is yet another feature scrapped from the list.
I think the closest Unix cliche to that would read like this:
“You can have quality, or you can have features.”
No, the old saying is:
“You can either have ease of use, features, stability or speed; pick any three, but you can’t have all four of them”.
Microsoft can live off their bank accounts for several years–they should have taken the option to break into 3 separate companies and make themselves more agile. That maneuver will cost them, dearly.
The interesting part would be how they would be valued; I think it would be pretty safe to assume that the Office/Middleware side of the business would easily zoom up to $40 a share; Office is the cash cow, Office merely allows Microsoft to maintain their Windows XP desktop monopoly; without that ‘requirement’, you’d see “Middleware Inc” push their Mac business, may even work with Novell or SUN to bring their software to the desktop on one of the *NIX’s.
1) Avalon on win2k/XP will _not_ be the same thing as Avalon on LH. Google: LDDM (Longhorn Dislpay Driver Model) for more details.
2) MSH will ship in LH time-frame. It will run on LH/xp/2k (beta 1 can even today). It will not be shipped as core LH part, but as automation engine for Exchange 12. It will also ship with WinFX SDK.
3) LH was mainly delayed because base windows team had to work on XP SP1 & WK3 SP1. LH _will_ be finished & deployed next year, and it will be so damn kewl that all you Mac & Linux weenees will have it as dual booted OS. It is being devoleped on 2K3 SP1 code base (much more secure).
“Longhorn would be shipped 5 years after Windows XP.
No other OS bothered to take advantage of that.”
Well, increasingly they do.
And more and more often it takes Microsoft longer and longer to implement features other systems (or programs) already have.
In the past Microsoft had the role of the follower, and due to their self-centric view they had some moments where they almost missed the boat (internet). They made it up with their size and illegal market strategy, but they never even were fast followers. They were slow followers due to lack of watching out, once they got a clue, they followed quite quickly.
But now they seem to become slow followers because they need so much time to implement new features and that shows that they have to change their corporate culture from a closed to an open culture.
Thanks for the correction
.
you really screwed up that quote
first of all it is “Features, bug free, on time: pick two”
and that doesnteven apply to microsoft because so far they havent managed to get any of the three:
There feature list was slashed and hacked into a fraction of what it was supposed to be.
Bug free? come on, maybe it will be stable, but considering they arent doing much drastically different its not exactly a hard target to get.
On time..oh right, cause long horn wasnt constantly pushed back
so what were you saying
but considering they arent doing much drastically different its not exactly a hard target to get.
Right.
But even if they did a lot drastically different this still wouldn’t necessarily mean they won’t screw it all up.
Security. Let’s hope for the sake of less experienced users (and for the sake of those who must help them get rid of their malware) that it’s much tighter this time around, even if they are inconvenienced.
Some people here have an irrational faith in Microsoft. To all of those who actually think Longhorn will be delivered as promised: remember Cairo? It’s 1992 all over again…
“”You can have quality, or you can have features, or you can have a closing ship date, but you can’t have all three.”
Sure you can just have a look at MacOSX. ”
Just tell me where are the features in OS X. Yes, it is a well-polished system, but calling it feature-rich is an utter lie. Then again, Apple never had closing ship dates. It always announces releases only a week before the actual release date. So here you go: OS X has the quality, but lacks features and closing ship date.
“Just tell me where are the features in OS X. Yes, it is a well-polished system, but calling it feature-rich is an utter lie.”
http://www.apple.com/macosx/newfeatures/
Considering it’s got more features than Longhorn is going to, it’s anybody’s guess what the hell you’re talking about.
Right. So how many of these features (besides RSS) do you actually use?
My guess? 0.
“Considering it’s got more features than Longhorn is going to, it’s anybody’s guess what the hell you’re talking about.”
And who said Longhorn is feature-rich? Man, OS X doesn’t even have built-in virtual desktops, or different desktop environments!
“In the past Microsoft had the role of the follower, and due to their self-centric view they had some moments where they almost missed the boat (internet). They made it up with their size and illegal market strategy, but they never even were fast followers.”
Let’s use your example. Before Internet Explorer, Netscape was a near-monopoly of the Internet browser market, garnering more than 80% of the market. How is it that Microsoft, unlike their direct competitors, is late to the market? Netscape may be first to the market, but couldn’t deliver. Its prices were too high (until IE came out free, you had to pay for Netscape), it was significantly slower than its competitors, and few third party developers wanted to license Netscape.
It’s hard to imagine Netscape progressing all that much with its pre-Mozilla Netscape Mosaic codebase even if IE came out a few years later and wasn’t integrated with Windows. Microsoft fulfilled market demands better than anyone else. But now, they don’t, and that’s why they have been losing significant chunks of market share to competitors without even a marketing budget.
You have to learn something about the market. Precious few care who came out with that idea or that concept first. They care about who fulfill their needs *now*.
“Man, OS X doesn’t even have built-in virtual desktops, or different desktop environments!”
Yea, every OS worth its salt should have virtual desktops. Virtual desktops rule. Why the hell is OS X called feature-rich anyway? I’ll dump it for sure when Longhorn is released. Longhorn will be the shiznit.
Yeah, right
“Yea, every OS worth its salt should have virtual desktops. Virtual desktops rule. Why the hell is OS X called feature-rich anyway?”
It was just an example. Besides, some people (like me) just can’t live without virtual desktops. Personally I don’t believe in Longhorn, but I hate stupid OS X fanboys that shout: “OS X is teh bestest OS, it’s superb, nothing can beat it, it has more features than a Swiss army knife, better programs than Canal Digital, it looks better than Doom3, and it’s more stable than Stonehenge! OH IF I JUST COULD MARRY AN OPERATING SYSTEM!”
Really, OS X is slick alright, but there are reasons why even people who have a Mac don’t run OS X in it.
Really, OS X is slick alright, but there are reasons why even people who have a Mac don’t run OS X in it.
Well i wouldn’t buy a mac exept a dual G5 for the hardware.For me it’s cheaper to assemble a better configuration.The only thing that’s damn appealing is MacOSX.