Microsoft preps second Longhorn event next year
Microsoft has set a date for a second Longhorn-themed Professional Developers Conference (PDC). The event will be held in September next year, almost two years after the company first detailed the Windows XP successor at the 2003 PDC.
Longhorn has undergone a lot of changes since that initial unveiling. Microsoft has sacrificed some key advances it had planned to make a 2006 ship date. And it now plans to offer updates for Windows XP and Server 2003 to support technologies previously reserved for Longhorn.
At the second Longhorn PDC, to be held between 13 and 16 September in Los Angeles, Microsoft should be able to give developers more concrete information on the operating system. A first Longhorn beta is scheduled to be available in the first half of 2005, several months before the event.
Microsoft has distributed several preview releases of Longhorn, including ones at the 2003 PDC and at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference in May 2004. However, with all the changes, it could be risky for developers to start programming for the operating system, as their work might depend on features that get cut, one analyst said.
"The timing of this PDC will be better because we will get builds of the product that are more representative of what it is going to look like when it is done," said Michael Cherry, lead analyst with Directions on Microsoft. "I would like to know when the feature set gets locked down."
