Gates Suggests 2006 for Longhorn

IDG News Service - Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates last week suggested 2006 as the release year for the next version of Windows, code-named Longhorn.
Speaking at Gartner Inc.'s Symposium/ITxpo event in San Diego, Gates stopped short of actually setting a deadline for Longhorn but said industry speculation that the operating system will come out in 2006 is "probably valid."
Gates also said that Microsoft will release an alpha version of Longhorn later this year. He didn't mention the first beta version, which Microsoft previously said it would deliver in 2004. A beta is further along in the software development cycle than an alpha. "We will have an alpha release out this year that everybody can look at," Gates said.
A Microsoft spokesman said the alpha version will be made available to software developers, but exactly how the company will distribute the software is yet to be decided.
At its Windows Engineering Hardware Conference last May, Microsoft said it would deliver Longhorn in 2005, but it later backed away from that commitment. Company executives have since declined to specify a release year for Longhorn, which Gates called a "big breakthrough release" for Microsoft.
Gates cautioned that the schedule for Longhorn is fluid. "Longhorn is not a date-driven release," he said. There are a lot of technological "must haves" for Longhorn, and those could hold back a release if they aren't completed on time, Gates added.
Software developers have already had a first look at Longhorn. Microsoft released a special preview version of the software at its Professional Developers Conference last October .
Evers writes for the IDG News Service.