What's Up With Windows?
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The Windows client team is going to have to perform some fancy footwork in the coming months, if it hopes to maintain its traditional momentum. Granted, Microsoft has promised it will deliver a new, interim version of Windows XP for Tablet PCs, as well as an update to its Windows XP Media Center Edition platform during its fiscal 2004. But it looks like there won't be many, if any, updates to the core Windows operating system for quite a while. Microsoft delivered SP1a for Windows XP in September 2002. The company had been delivering regular beta builds of SP2 to testers (the latest coming in June) for several months. But it now turns out that Service Pack (SP) 2 for Windows XP is running close to a year later than Microsoft had targeted. Instead of shipping by the end of calendar 2003, as Microsoft had indicated that it was expecting just a month ago, SP2 is now listed as a Q3 2004 deliverable. Microsoft didn't announce the date slip; instead, it came to light in a service-pack roadmap published to the Microsoft Web site on Friday. What gives? We asked. Late Monday, Microsoft was claiming the Q3 date was a typo, and that Redmond actually is planning to deliver SP2 by mid-2004. Typo or no typo, SP2 is running a lot later than folks expected. Many were awaiting SP2, not just for the anticipated security fixes, but also for a couple of new features that Group VP Jim Allchin said would be part of the next major XP SP. (Hey, aren't SPs supposed to be all fixes and no new features, according to Redmond's own rules? Details, details.) Meanwhile, Microsoft seems to be monkeying with Longhorn dates again. The be-all/end-all of client operating systems originally was expected in 2004. Then, Microsoft execs started talking 2005. Last month, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates recently declined to pin a date on Longhorn at all. (Meanwhile, the on-again/off-again Longhorn Server isn't expected until 2006, at the earliest.) If it won't be shipping new Windows releases (or even SP updates), what will the client division be doing to try to keep the Windows fires burning? Allchin offered this laundry list at the company's recent Financial Analyst meeting:
But how will Windows Client continue to foster excitement for an operating system that shipped in 2001? Maybe a "Shorthorn" (the rumored code name for a Windows version between Windows XP and Longhorn) wouldn't be such a bad idea, despite the fact that Microsoft officials are swearing up and down that such a release isn't on the books. What's your take? Short of shoring up the lineup with Shorthorn, what should the Windows Client team do to stoke the Windows fires during the rest of 2003 and into 2004?
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