News.com has a huge article this morning about Microsoft’s Windows new operating system being released next year code-named Longhorn. The article makes several points, in a nutshell, here they are. Microsoft has had so many delays with Longhorn that it’s forced them to keep updating the current Windows XP. It’s gotten to the point where XP has become the most stable of any Windows system to date. Several of the new features in Longhorn are supposedly being dropped to get the OS out the door next year. Plus several of Longhorn’s features were or will about to be implemented into Windows XP to handle security problems or feature requests.
Microsoft has handled this problem before. They’ve taken a product that is full featured and contains all the bells and whistles it can possibly contain and made normally intelligent users spend hundreds of dollars on an un-needed upgrade. They call it Office Suite. The article expects Microsoft to hit the PR road later this year and start telling it’s users why Windows XP is not good enough for you. The key will be which features they leave in Longhorn and which are taken out.