When Microsoft chairman Bill Gates touts his company's next Windows operating system, code named "Longhorn," he can barely contain his enthusiasm, adding "it will be super to get that out in the hands of our customers." The big question is whether customers will share Gates' enthusiasm more than a year from now.
Speaking at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference in Seattle on April 25, Gates gave a preview of Longhorn, to be released in late 2006. The preview, demonstrated in a keynote speech by Gates and other executives, showed off security enhancements, a computer "flight data recorder" that can diagnose the reasons for crashes, "rich indexing" that will allow easy searches and previews of the contents of a hard drive, and visual effects such as transparent file folders. "You have to go back, certainly, to Windows 95 to see something where we did a broad set of things that really enabled more types of applications," Gates said at the preview.
While enabling the next generation is one thing, getting corporate customers and consumers on the Longhorn bandwagon may take some doing, say professors at Wharton. Is enhanced security going to spark the upgrades to grow Microsoft's revenue? Will consumers be lured by visual effects? Is Longhorn enough to touch off a buying frenzy for related technology such as semiconductors, personal computers and networking equipment?
"It's tough because Microsoft has to play to two markets -- the consumer and the corporate enterprise," says Wharton legal studies professor Kevin Werbach. "Microsoft has to balance new features with the calculated decisions of corporations." Another challenge is inertia. "Yes, Longhorn is a big deal for the technology industry, but it is hard to get excited about," Werbach adds, especially when Longhorn won't be completed until late next year. On the bright side, Gates has plenty of time to build up anticipation for Longhorn.
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