Hardware makers likely to seethe at MS Longhorn changes

WHEN MICROSOFT told all of its software and hardware partners three years ago that it was going to introduce the mother and father of all software products, the hardware firms became terribly excited.

So they all started producing hardware that would take advantage of the new improved software like there was no tomorrow.

Three years ago, Microsoft was briefing all the hardware makers how they'd see beta Longhorn in Q3 of 2004, and the firms made their plans accordingly. One executive close to Nvidia was so enthused by the changes to the operating system that he practically fell over in an ecstatic trance at the time.

Tomorrow, well practically tomorrow, we'll see hardware support for PCI Express from Intel, from AMD, from ATI and from Nvidia. And from others.

But we're still waiting to see what the heck Microsoft is doing with its Longhorn operating system, which as we reported from the Etre conference last autumn, would in Bill Gates' own words cost as much to create as to put a man on the moon.

According to a story in a coming issue of Business Week, all has changed at Microsoft, and in order to meet its new and revised deadlines of 2006, it will drop some features.

Business Week has its mitts on two emails showing that MS will bung Longhorn out of the door in 2006.

But it's a shorter version of Longhorn, and the hardware vendors are likely to be seething even more at Microsoft. Business Week, quoting a Microsoft email, said that we're likely to see an early beta now in February next year, but there will be compromises made. It outlines the changes in its article, linked below. Longhorn, like Easter, is truly a moveable feast.

After all, the chip and hardware vendors have factories, or arrangements with factories, and when you're making hard stuff - and not just software - schedules have to be kept.

How disappointed they must be. Still, maybe Microsoft won't have to spend half of its cash pile on an OS that is the 21st century equivalent of putting a man on the moon. µ

See Also
Microsoft Longhorn, 3GIO, to change PC rules
Microsoft Longhorn to cost as much as man on moon project, Gates says
Microsoft's Gates dampens Longhorn OS fever
Nvidia producting Xbox chips under duress
What the 13 PNIs of Prescott really do Copyright the INQUIRER 2003 - on the Intel site :)

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