Foghorn Longhorn, It's About Time For That Release

It's about time Microsoft set a production date for the next generation of income stream, er, software. Yes, I'm talking about Longhorn.

I was starting to get nervous, since I haven't had to upgrade my client software in a while, and thought that MS had forgotten me. I know that I really should move from W2K Professional (the business workstation) to XP (the multimedia workstation), but I do business type things.

Then I learned that XP does stuff that a business person would want to do, and W2K Pro just won't (see my article on Terminal Servers). I was obviously both taken aback, and depressed by this circumstance of misplaced marketing.

But my heart did flutter when I read John Foley's article. A replacement for our desktop client somewhere around "should come six to 12 months before Longhorn." But, and don't you just hate that word "But," then I read further.

"Transitioning to Longhorn server will be easiest for companies running Windows Server 2003 or R2," says Bob Muglia, senior VP of Microsoft's Windows Server Division. At the end of last year, only 12.7% of the Windows server installed base ran Windows Server 2003, according to IDC. That means many Microsoft customers face one big upgrade, to Windows Server 2003, before tackling Longhorn."If it was anything like Windows 2000, I might ask Daffy Duck for a job as his assistant, since I've been daffy ever since Windows 2000 debuted.

I hope Microsoft makes this stuff palatable otherwise many of us will be saying "Thaaattt'ss Alllll Billllll!"