Posted on 04/09/2004 1:31:40 PM PDT by Vermonter
Online Extra: How Microsoft Is Clipping Longhorn
To get the already-delayed follow-up to Windows XP out the door by 2006, it has decided to omit some of the most ambitious features
Never in its history has Microsoft (MSFT ) had to wait so long between Windows releases. When Windows XP launched in October, 2001, researcher Gartner Inc. expected the software giant to gin up a new version within two years. But Microsoft's ambitious follow-up to Windows XP, code-named Longhorn, has bogged down in delays. The company rarely discloses timelines for products, lest it miss its targets. But in copies of two e-mail messages obtained by BusinessWeek, Microsoft lays out a roadmap that shows Longhorn debuting in the first six months of 2006.
What's more, the e-mails disclose Microsoft's plans to cut some of the most far-reaching pieces of Longhorn in order to get the product shipped. For instance, Microsoft had planned to overhaul the file system, the way information is stored. The goal had been to change the way files relate to one another, so that users could quickly find documents, e-mail, and photos that have some connection to one another. It would be easy, for example, to locate not just digital photos, but e-mail from people in them. It's an enormous undertaking.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.businessweek.com ...
It's an enormous undertaking.You had three years, nearly unlimited resources, and armies of the best engineers that Russia and Asia can produce! GET IT DONE YOU MORONS!
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The changes also affect Microsoft's plan to make the next version of its Office software work only on Longhorn. The new plans call for that Office package to work on previous versions of Windows as well.
Hence the new Operating System every few years. They not only get to sell us a new OS, but if they do it right, we ultimately have to rebuy all our software to accomodate. Never mind that all these things already do more or less what we want them to, and nobody's crying out for features that couldn't be accomplished by a patch or two.
Whatever...I still have a devil of a time getting my 20 new XP machines to work in a multiuser environment. What are there, some 850 possible permissions? ~sigh
The company plans to release a new product, internally known as Windows XP Premium, that combines Windows XP Professional with an updated version of Windows Media Player. Premium will be available only on new PCs, not in boxes at retail. The new media player software lets online music stores -- including one that Microsoft plans to launch later this year -- snap right into the design, so that users can easily buy music from inside the player application.
The software will also work seamlessly with the Portable Media Player, handheld devices that run Microsoft software.
Wow. I wonder where they came up with this idea? Who would have ever thought of doing something like this?
It's been like this since I was working for the city of Austin and all the guys with stomachs big enough to use their navels for koozie cups were running around with t-shirts that said "real men don't use mice" on them. PC users run around calling Apple irrelevent and overpriced, and claiming nobody uses Apple, then BAMMO! what a stroke of genius by MS! Incorporate a MOUSE into the OS. Who would have ever thought of it? I guess I should be grateful, though. Apple would probably go out of business if it weren't for all the people that use "real computers" buying them so they can reverse engineer, rip off and produce the next version of Windows, which will probably be called something really original, like "M-OSX".
BTW, Bush2000, I know your week of being polite is over, so feel free to blast away.
So9
It's already out. It's called Winamp v5.0.3. It's so good they skipped a number.
I recently doenloaded it and installed and it is...the bomb. It now does video and gives access to streaming Internet audio/radio of ALL types and Internet video and TV of ALL types.
Wanna listen to Old Time Radio? No problem. Want to watch full screen classic episodes of The Andy Griffith Show? No problem. It is skinnable with version 2 or version 3 skins or with tons of new modern looking themes that are included with the package.
I was skeptical at first because I hated version 3...but this new version blows Media Player away!
Because it does what it's supposed to. I use W2k at home and see no reason to upgrade. I haven't encountered anything I want to run that won't. For the fires couple of years there were some hardware devices that didn't have drivers, but that went away.
Anyone who used windows prior to 2000 has reason to think it sucks.
My arms are getting tired from doing handstands trying to get permissions right with certain applications.
But it is overpriced and irrelevant.
Not just software, but new computers as well. The Microsoft OS gets so bloated with each new release that you can't even run it on a computer more than 5 years old.
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