Q&A: Microsoft's Eric Rudder outlines Longhorn server plans

Caution led to confusion about the fate of the upcoming Windows server operating system

By Carol Sliwa

August 1, 2003 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - Eric Rudder, senior vice president of servers and tools at Microsoft Corp., last week spoke with Computerworld about the direction for Longhorn, the code name for the next version of the Windows operating system.
Microsoft said last November there would be no Longhorn server. Then Brian Valentine, senior vice president of the Windows division, told me in March that there might be a Longhorn server. Now you're saying there will be a Longhorn server. What happened? We typically do a server release about every three years, and we're eagerly working on the next version of Windows Server as we speak. I think in the past people have been cautious about setting customer expectations, and that potentially [caused] some of the confusion. The client guys are out saying, "Hey, our date is x." If we impart the same name, customers may link in their minds, "Oh, the server has the same name, therefore it's the same date."
So I think people were a little bit scared about setting expectations, because we're pretty serious, once we commit to the schedule for the product, to try to come close to honor that. This is a case where we're clearly customer-driven in terms of feature set, and we're not date-driven on our server products. We're more quality-, performance-, security-, dependability- and ecosystem-driven. It would be fantastic if the server can come out close to the client, and it would be fantastic if it had all the features that customers wanted. We're going to do the best we can to balance between those two business objectives.


Eric Rudder of Microsoft Corp.

Will we see synchronized releases of the Windows client and server operating systems in the future? I think it would be nice if it were synchronized, because it probably makes it a little bit easier for customers to think about how they upgrade their networks on a consistent basis. But we're going to be driven in the end by customer demands and quality demands, and there's a set of business objectives that we need to balance between them. It's hard for me to predict a year out what the balancing is going to look like in any shape or form.
What new functionality is driving the Longhorn server release? With Windows 2003, we had the theme of "do more with less," and we want to continue to push that forward. We want to make some fundamental breakthroughs on management and the operations side. One of the big initiatives is what we call DSI, our Dynamic

Recommend Digg Twitter ShareThis

Email Print Send Feedback Reprints

Additional Resources

POLL RESULTS

Leading IT Pros Weigh In on Top IT Issues

Accelerate your knowledge of the IT world you inhabit by viewing the results of a series of polls taken by your IT peers. These polls of 100+ IT professionals each are available for full viewing. They cover key topics such as virtualization, processor performance, green IT, cloud computing and many others. Be a part of the buzz.

WHITE PAPER

For Best Results, Think Beyond the Box

Technology is complex. Keeping it running productively shouldn't be. To that end, you want to minimize the number of solutions needed in-house to simplify operations, maintenance, and support. Kodak offers a best-practices model. One company provides support for both scanner and software, for fast problem resolution without vendor finger-pointing. Download now!

WHITE PAPER

Accelerating the Path to Demand Intelligence with a Demand Signal Repository

Utilizing demand intelligence improves the precision of pricing, product assortments, channel/store placement, and promotion, which are all essential for sustainable revenue management performance. Learn more, download this free whitepaper today.

White Papers & Webcasts

Gartner Research Report: Magic Quadrant for Application Delivery Controllers, 2008
This Research Report explores how vendors focused on solving enterprises' most-pressing application problems have become the top players....

Controlling Email and File Server Growth and Costs with Intelligent Archiving
(Source: Symantec) According to IDC 54% of the storage capacity added by organizations in 2008 will be dedicated to the storage of file-based...

Gartner Research Report: Load Balancers Are Dead - Time to Focus on Application Delivery
This research shifts the attention from basic load-balancing features to application delivery features to aid in the deployment and delivery of applications. Networking...

Usability Is Everything
Learn what sets Workday's HR and Payroll solutions apart from the competition....

Speeding business innovation with HP Data Center Transformation solutions
Data center transformation enables your IT organization to focus more on business priorities and innovation by decreasing spending on maintenance and management by...

The Value of Real SaaS at Workday
Cost savings, speed to value, and innovation brought to the enterprise by Workday's software-as-a-service solutions for HR and Payroll....

IDC White Paper: The Benefits of Datacenter Transformation with HP
IDC expects that for the next several years, there will be considerable investment in a datacenter "makeover: - not just in datacenter systems...

SaaS at Flextronics, Inc.
Dave Smoley, CIO of Flextronics, discusses the real value of software-as-a-service and why he chose Workday for his HR solution....

Get More! From Your Data Center: Rely on Liebert for System Availability and Integrity
Emerson Network Power and its Liebert power and cooling technologies can help you protect your applications downtime despite power outages or security threats...

Why Compliance Pays
This OnDemand webcast explores the relationship that firms with best compliance records have higher revenue, greater customer retention, lower financial losses from data...

All White Papers | All Webcasts