News

Windows Longhorn Server Set for 2007

• By Scott Bekker
• May 13, 2004

While Jim Allchin said this month that the Windows Longhorn client and server projects are back in synch from a development perspective, another senior Microsoft officials clarified this week that the server version won't be ready as soon as the client version.

On a media tour this week, Bob Muglia, Microsoft senior vice president for Windows Server Systems, gave 2007 as the target ship date for Longhorn server. The Longhorn client is expected sometime in 2006.

Muglia reiterated that the R2 release of Windows Server 2003 is slated for 2005, as Allchin said at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference earlier this month. Allchin is Microsoft's group vice president for platforms. Muglia also said a Longhorn server update would be due in 2008.

While Microsoft's projections for the next six months are about as reliable as an extended weather forecast, Muglia apparently was bold enough to project the roadmap out six years. He said a Blackcomb server is due in 2010 or later. Blackcomb, you may remember, was the version of Windows to follow Whistler, the code-name for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Longhorn got shoehorned in between Whistler and Blackcomb as a quickie release, that quickly metastasized into a major project.

One interesting thing Muglia did tell Mary Jo Foley of Microsoft Watch was that Microsoft would start to shy away from feature packs and start handling incremental updates in update releases like R2 and Longhorn Update. He said customers have found the feature packs too troublesome to find and load.