Microsoft has said publicly that Beta 1 of Longhorn would arrive by the end of 2005, though internally, the company has been aiming for a release by the middle of this year. The final version of Longhorn is slated for the second half of 2006. But regardless of exactly when the launch finally happens, the threat from Linux on the server and client, and the quiet bleed to a thin computing model, has created some stiff challenges for the software giant, say industry watchers.
"We've seen a growing use of thin-client browser-based environments and this plays very strongly to the Linux desktop community. Longhorn is certainly Microsoft's attempt to reassert control against Linux and open source thin clients." says Neil Macehiter, a partner at MWD Advisors.
As a result, Microsoft is talking less about rich desktop applications, exploited locally on the client, and more about hybrid or 'smart' clients, which it is positioning as "the best of both worlds".
This is, according to Mark Quirk, head of technology at Microsoft's developer and platform group, because smart clients provide customers with the benefits of thin clients such as ease of deployment and administration, while also enabling them to undertake local processing.
"We see more people talking about smart clients than Linux. People want rich applications that they can deploy and manage centrally and you can do this with .Net today, but Longhorn will make it much easier," he says.
From a strategic point of view, however, it is actually the server rather than the client version of Longhorn that is more critical to Microsoft due to the long-term threat posed by Linux at the back-end.
While the majority of defections to Linux are currently taking place at the expense of Unix because migration is easier and the two can be looked after using similar management techniques, "this will change over time and Linux will seriously begin to threaten Microsoft sales as well as act as a replacement to it", says Macehiter.
"Given Microsoft's dominant position on the desktop, it's trying to make it play as well as possible with Windows server because it increases the barrier to taking out the server," he explains.
Olivier Nguyen van Tan, chief operating officer of Pierre Audoin Consultants, believes Microsoft will push its "integration innovation" message forcefully as equalling higher levels of productivity and lower cost for customers.
Continued ...
