Windows Server 2008: preview, part I
It’s taken five years, but it looks like the successor to Windows Server 2003, until recently known as Longhorn Server, is just about ready for release. A public beta (Beta 3) came out in April and it now has an official name — Windows Server 2008 — the addition of a date being a sure sign of its imminent launch.
But don’t hold your breath. Officially, the product will ship in the second half of 2007, but, given Microsoft’s record in such matters, the end of the year seems a good bet. Moreover the long-awaited Server Virtualisation technology (previously known by the codename Viridian) won’t be included at launch, and could be delayed by anything up to 180 days. Neither will it deliver everything originally promised — something we’ll look at in more detail in the second part of this preview. In the meantime, the feature set of the main operating system is complete, so little will change from the Beta 3 we’ve been testing.
