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First Look at Microsoft 'Longhorn' Operating System

Posted on: Monday, 27 October 2003, 06:00 CST

By Helen Jung

LOS ANGELES (AP) -— Computer users will be able to more easily search for data, will be able to better navigate their computers and will be able to work more securely in the next version of Microsoft's Windows, company founder Bill Gates said Monday.

The new operating system and applications built on top of it will put users "back in the driver's seat" of managing information, Gates told a crowd of several thousand software developers at its Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles.

At the event, Gates, now Microsoft's chief software architect, offered the first public view of "Longhorn," the next version of Microsoft's flagship operating system and what Microsoft has called its biggest software release since the landmark Windows 95 eight years ago. Windows, which powers more than 90% of the world's desktop computers, is Microsoft's primary moneymaker.

Gates did not give a specific release date, although the company later said it plans to release a "beta" or test version next summer. Analysts have said the final version likely won't be released until 2006.

Microsoft is turning not only to its own developers, but those outside the Redmond, Wash.-based company to shape Longhorn, Gates stressed.

"We're at the beginning of this process," he said. "We need your involvement to get this right."

A Microsoft product manager showed such features as a new vertical panel on the side of the screen that includes the time, instant-messaging buddy lists and other information.

Longhorn will incorporate sophisticated graphics to redesign the way people use and navigate the operating system. It also will make it easier for co-workers to share increasingly complex electronic documents

For users, many of the improvements will be behind the scenes, Gates said. A new file storage system will allow much more thorough document searches, with less work by the user, he said.

Hardware advances over the next few years will set the stage for Longhorn's capabilities, Gates said. New computer chips will help boost security by allowing computers to handle and process confidential documents in an isolated part of the computer.

Also, by 2006, users will commonly have far more powerful personal computers with greater storage space, and will work and live in an environment of always-on wireless connections to the Internet, Gates said.

"A personal computer in less than three years will be a pretty phenomenal device," he said. "In fact, I think its simple to say where the constraint is in this era. ... Software that is managing itself, software that is reducing the complexity. That's really today's thing."

Longhorn is also Microsoft's platform for developers to build new Web services, programmed in a universal language, that allow users and companies to automatically exchange information, conduct transactions and trade services over the Internet.

Several developers said they were enthusiastic about what Microsoft is doing. But others, including Richard Laths, a computer scientist with Tampa-based Psychological Assessment Resources, which develops online psychological tests, were more skeptical that Microsoft will be able to deliver on its ideas.

"It's probably more Microsoft vaporware," he said, referring to software that is announced but never developed.

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