An Insider's View Of Longhorn's Top Features
Microsoft group VP Jim Allchin realizes the rest of us may need help sorting out what's so special about Microsoft's next-generation operating system. So the 15-year company veteran has come up with his own list of Longhorn highlights.
"There's so much in Longhorn, it's hard to figure what are the things that are just over the top that people will appreciate," Allchin said in a recent interview. With that in mind, Microsoft's top Windows exec (chief software architect Bill Gates excluded) ranks the following among his top Longhorn features:
1. Unrivaled security and safety. Among the improvements are a version of Internet Explorer that runs with user rights that are more restricted than current versions of IE. In addition, some portion of Microsoft's hardware-level Next-Generation Secure Computing Base technology will be included in Longhorn. "We're supporting some of that work," Allchin says.
2. New data-organization and visualization capabilities. Even without the still-in-development WinFS file system, Longhorn will come with advances in data search and management that are "integrated into everything," Allchin says. Search results can be stacked, rearranged, filtered, and used to create new lists. And lists can include RSS feeds.
3. Reduced operational costs. Microsoft intends to demonstrate Longhorn costs less to manage and support, using real-world customer examples.
4. Mobile computing advances. "It's going to be the mobile operating system," Allchin says. "It's going to be a significant advancement." Examples include "auxiliary displays" that let a laptop user view her calendar even when the computer is off. And the Next-Generation Secure Computing Base technology will provide added protection if a laptop is misplaced or stolen.
5. Increased resiliency and simplicity. Today, Windows is "just harder than it should be" when it comes to basics such as organizing data or guarding against system failure, admits Allchin. "We're doing a bunch of work to make the OS more resilient and simpler," he says.
6. Other "goodies." Longhorn will come with giveaways such as peer-to-peer games for home users and wireless-projection capabilities for the office.
That's Allchin's short list of must-have Longhorn features. By the way, Longhorn is being driven by several fundamental design goals. Here's a quick recap of those, too:
# It just works. Example: No more fussing to find and use a new printer when you move from place to place.
# Safe and secure. By "safe," Microsoft doesn't just mean avoiding malicious software. Longhorn will have a built-in parental controls over PC games and Internet usage.
# Easy to deploy and manage. The goal is to get better at everything from adding a new home PC to managing multiple PC "images" in a corporate network.
# Improved end-user experiences. Whether in a home or office, or on the road.
# Roles-based servers. Taking the concept of rolls-based servers (Web server, E-mail server, directory server, database server), available today with Windows Small Business Server 2003, to larger companies.
# Creating an OS that will be around for 10 years. "To some degree," Allchin says, "this is all about APIs."
"There's so much in Longhorn, it's hard to figure what are the things that are just over the top that people will appreciate," Allchin said in a recent interview. With that in mind, Microsoft's top Windows exec (chief software architect Bill Gates excluded) ranks the following among his top Longhorn features:
1. Unrivaled security and safety. Among the improvements are a version of Internet Explorer that runs with user rights that are more restricted than current versions of IE. In addition, some portion of Microsoft's hardware-level Next-Generation Secure Computing Base technology will be included in Longhorn. "We're supporting some of that work," Allchin says.
2. New data-organization and visualization capabilities. Even without the still-in-development WinFS file system, Longhorn will come with advances in data search and management that are "integrated into everything," Allchin says. Search results can be stacked, rearranged, filtered, and used to create new lists. And lists can include RSS feeds.
3. Reduced operational costs. Microsoft intends to demonstrate Longhorn costs less to manage and support, using real-world customer examples.
4. Mobile computing advances. "It's going to be the mobile operating system," Allchin says. "It's going to be a significant advancement." Examples include "auxiliary displays" that let a laptop user view her calendar even when the computer is off. And the Next-Generation Secure Computing Base technology will provide added protection if a laptop is misplaced or stolen.
5. Increased resiliency and simplicity. Today, Windows is "just harder than it should be" when it comes to basics such as organizing data or guarding against system failure, admits Allchin. "We're doing a bunch of work to make the OS more resilient and simpler," he says.
6. Other "goodies." Longhorn will come with giveaways such as peer-to-peer games for home users and wireless-projection capabilities for the office.
That's Allchin's short list of must-have Longhorn features. By the way, Longhorn is being driven by several fundamental design goals. Here's a quick recap of those, too:
# It just works. Example: No more fussing to find and use a new printer when you move from place to place.
# Safe and secure. By "safe," Microsoft doesn't just mean avoiding malicious software. Longhorn will have a built-in parental controls over PC games and Internet usage.
# Easy to deploy and manage. The goal is to get better at everything from adding a new home PC to managing multiple PC "images" in a corporate network.
# Improved end-user experiences. Whether in a home or office, or on the road.
# Roles-based servers. Taking the concept of rolls-based servers (Web server, E-mail server, directory server, database server), available today with Windows Small Business Server 2003, to larger companies.
# Creating an OS that will be around for 10 years. "To some degree," Allchin says, "this is all about APIs."
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posted by sikandar at 6:40 PM
3 Comments:
Microsoft is shamelessly copying Mac OS.
Microsoft’s Jim Allchin is out plugging "Longhorn," even though the OS isn’t expected to be released for more than another year. Apparently, not content to copy features from the Mac OS and Linux, the new MS mantra ("It just works") is also borrowed from Apple’s ad campaigns.
In the Fortune piece, Allchin brags to David Kirkpatrick about Longhorn automatically defragging your hard drive, a practice I’d forgotten about since switching to Linux as my main OS in 1999. He also brags that longhorn will display a preview of a document in the icon, something that already works for many document types in Nautilus (the GNOME file manager) and others. He boasts about new versions of Windows running on 64-bit chips, but Windows is the slow kid in the classroom on that as well — Linux has done 64-bit on x86 chips for years now, and Solaris and Mac OS X (to name just a few) have already beat Windows to the punch there as well.
Charles Cooper points out why Longhorn matters, though not in a good way for Microsoft. Basically, Allchin and company are trying to stall for time. As the world eyes Mac OS X and Linux, Microsoft is trying to keep up the hype until they can push Longhorn out the door. It’s a standard Microsoft tactic — when the competitors are releasing software that does what people want now promise something better later in the hopes of keeping customers onboard. Granted, Microsoft has inertia on its side, so it’s unlikely that Longhorn could be an Itanium-style disaster for Microsoft — but, if Microsoft doesn’t deliver, on time, it will have some negative consequences for the company
Phani kumar you seem to be an idiot truly. Linux running 64 bit on x86 chips for years. Where did you get that? x86x64 chips were out only in late 2003 so how can it be running 64 bit for years and furthermore x86 hardware doesnt support 64 bit it is for 32 bit only. And as you have read the article the main change is direct hardware rendering on the GUI instead of software as well as the new API are the most important things in longhorn. And yes longhorn is not about previewing the file type on the icon its gonna be more than that and when it comes (loaded with extensive user rights and permissions, new local security policy etc) it will blow any other OS away. And yaa you can preview file types in icons in windows XP also if you didnt know that.
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