As part of its ongoing push to get Longhorn out the door, Microsoft is shuffling its Windows client management deck, according to sources close to the company.

In the latest reorg, Joe Peterson, vice president of Windows product development, is being removed from day-to-day Longhorn product responsibilities. He will be replaced by Chris Jones, who has been serving as corporate vice president in the Core Operating Systems Division (COSD), according to sources claiming familiarity with Microsoft's strategy.

Jones, a 14-year Microsoft veteran, is no stranger to the Windows product side of the house. Before joining COSD — the central Windows organization formed a year and a half ago — Jones was a vice president with the Windows client group before and helped deliver Windows XP to market. He also was a manger on the Internet Explorer team, where he was key in getting IE 3.0, 4.0 and 5.0 out the door.

Microsoft officials declined to comment on the changes, other than to confirm that Jones will be moving back to the Windows client team. Officials would not say when the change would take effect or how long Jones would remain in that role.

Peterson also did not return a request for comment.

In 2004, Peterson was promoted from vice president in charge of Windows User Experience to his recent product-development role. At that time, Peterson took on additional responsibilities, including supervising Windows graphics and gaming, as well as client user interface design and development — previously handled by Jones — when Jones moved to COSD.

Peterson is not leaving Microsoft, said one source close to the company. Instead, he will continue to assist with Windows strategy around Windows Marketplace, Microsoft's online Web marketing site for Microsoft and third-party software, hardware and services; Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage anti-piracy initiative; electronic software distribution, and the like. But Peterson won't be involved in getting Longhorn out the door, sources said.

Instead, that will be the job of Jones, who has a proven track record in moving product from the beta to ship stage, sources said.

"Chris Jones…was brought back from COSD to save the (Longhorn) product," said one source.

Microsoft officials deny the product is in need of saving. A company spokesperson confirmed on Wednesday that Microsoft is still on track to deliver Beta 1 of Longhorn "this summer," as officials have been saying for several months now. And the company is still counting on delivering the final release in time for it to make it into delivery channels by the "holiday 2006" timeframe.

But Microsoft customers, testers and pundits all have questioned how, when and whether Microsoft will meet its target.

Last summer, Microsoft officials drew a line in the sand when they decided to pull WinFS, the Windows file system originally targeted for Longhorn, out of the product in order to be able to ship in 2006. Since then, Microsoft has cut a few other features from Longhorn, including the Microsoft Business Framework layer of classes that would ride atop the .Net Framework, the Monad scripting shell and the Sidebar user-interface pane. In addition, some Microsoft watchers have wondered how much of Avalon, the Windows presentation subsystem, will ship as part of Longhorn.

Recent Longhorn pre- Beta 1 builds are now set to expire in December 2006, said one Microsoft partner, who requested anonymity. The partner said he took that as a sign that Longhorn is running late.

The December 2006 date "is embedded in the new beta code that is now downloadable," said the partner. "It will not expire until December 2006.

Microsoft could be extending the beta date beyond the final ship date, as it has done with other products, to cover testers experimenting with the beta code. But Microsoft also could be hedging its bets.