Microsoft already has made a significant commitment to production of the OS. Company chairman Bill Gates told analysts in July that the company will increase its 2003 R&D spending by 20 percent to US$5.2 billion and will hire 5,000 employees to prepare for a series of software launches that includes Longhorn.

Gates also explained that the upcoming release will "promise the greatest breakthroughs to date for information workers" in terms of how applications, operating systems and Web services will be more tightly integrated to better organize and display data .

"As we continue to move into the 'Digital Decade,' we're seeing the boundaries between systems and applications start to dissolve," he said.

Details Murky

Details of what Longhorn will actually be like are still unclear, as rumors spread on message boards and in chat rooms about how the operating system will function.

At least one report has indicated that Longhorn will use a new application programming interface (API) framework, code-named Avalon, as the core of its new information access architecture. The structure is intended to let users share and organize information in a more intuitive way than in previous versions of Windows.

The platform, according to reports, also is designed to tie into a .NET environment.

Microsoft spokespersons told NewsFactor that it is far too early to comment on any specific features of the upcoming OS, or on its projected release date.

Future OS Sales in Question

But some analysts have questioned whether commercial clients, as well as many consumers, still regard operating systems as software that needs to be upgraded.

"I believe [operating systems] are viewed as a feature of the hardware, and I think [they are] becoming less important over time, rather than more," Carl Howe, research director at Forrester, told NewsFactor. "The days of do-it-yourself are ending. People want things that will provide some immediate satisfaction and that do something they need."

And IDC director of client computing Roger Kay told NewsFactor: "I think consumers don't care about new features. They still haven't figured out all the features on the last [operating system]."

Microsoft disagreed. Its spokesperson said the software maker is encouraged by sales of Windows XP as an indicator of how Longhorn may fare.

"Microsoft has not seen evidence of consumers tiring of OS upgrades," said the spokesperson, pointing out that more than 46 million copies of Windows XP have been sold through OEMs and retail outlets since the software's release in October 2001.

The company said its statistics show that XP, which launched to what industry reports called flat-to-modest sales, has outpaced all other operating systems that Microsoft has released. That tally includes Windows 98, which had sold 28.5 million copies after the first nine months.

Microsoft said it could not provide a breakdown between XP copies sold to OEMs and to retail outlets.

Consumers Need Simplicity

What it would take to make consumers crave a new Windows operating system, according to analysts, has less to do with particular features than with how reliable and easy to use such an OS would be.

In terms of the ability to take advantage of Web services features, IDC's Kay predicted that consumers will be unwilling to upgrade to Longhorn just so they can make "a dentist appointment via their dentist's Web site from their own PC."

"If they find out that in order to get that marginal feature they have to get a whole new OS and maybe a whole new PC, it will be one angry bunch of consumers," Kay added.

Fewer Features - and Bugs (continued...)

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