XP upgrade timetable slips
New Windows XP launch delayed.
Microsoft has announced that the launch of the next version of Windows XP, codenamed Longhorn, is likely to take place in 2004 rather than 2003 as previously expected.
The company made the announcement at the recent annual Windows hardware engineering conference in Seattle. Jim Allchin, vice president of platforms at Microsoft, said: "I don't think Longhorn is going to ship before 2004, but there are teams already working on technologies for both the client and server. We want to make it a very significant release, and we are going to have a reasonable development cycle for this version."
He said that in the past Microsoft had moved too fast in product development and had spent more time reacting to beta feedback than innovating. Allchin said that it was too early to say when the first beta of Longhorn would be available.
Initially Microsoft had intended to move from Windows XP to a version codenamed Blackcomb, a .Net version of the desktop operating system, in 2003. This launch date was pushed back to about 2005 amid concerns that some of the technology planned for it would raise antitrust issues.
Longhorn is designed to take its place in the interim.
Longhorn was expected to be a fairly minor upgrade to Windows XP but Microsoft now seems to be investing heavily in new technology for the release. This includes a new graphics architecture, called the Longhorn graphics infrastructure, which will bring 3D visualisation capabilities to the platform, and new storage technology that allows flexible queries.
The delay to Longhorn could push back the launch of Blackcomb even further, with two major updates to the Windows platform within the space of a year seeming unlikely.
Microsoft has also rescheduled the launch of other products recently, including the Windows .Net Server family, slated for release at the end of the year but now expected in early 2003; and Corona, the next generation of Windows Media technologies that has slipped by a similar timescale.
The delays result from the company's recently launched Trustworthy Computing initiative, which is designed to improve the security of products during the development phase.
With a long gap between the launch of Windows XP and Longhorn, the company has resisted the temptation to repeat the strategy of Windows 98 and launch a second edition of XP. Important technologies, such as support for Bluetooth wireless connectivity, may be packaged together and given to customers some time next year.