SEATTLE – Microsoft Corp. will drop a much-touted new technology for organizing and storing data when it releases the next version of its Windows operating system in 2006.
Tom Button, corporate vice president for Windows product management, said the company hopes to release the new Windows version, code-named Longhorn, in the second half of 2006, about five years after the release of the current version, Windows XP.
With Longhorn, Button said Microsoft plans to improve the way people find things such as e-mails, photos and documents. But in formally announcing the release date, the company said it would not be ready to include an even more advanced system for sorting, storing and finding data. Instead, it will begin testing that system about the same time it releases Longhorn, and make it available at an unspecified time.
The ability to find and organize data on a personal computer is becoming increasingly important as people are able to amass more digital information. Right now, finding pictures, e-mails and a Microsoft Word document, all related to the same topic – say, a vacation in Hawaii – is time-consuming and cumbersome. These new technologies aim to make it quicker and easier.
Michael Cherry, an analyst with independent researchers Directions on Microsoft, said the company probably had little choice but to reduce Longhorn’s capabilities if it wanted to deliver the system on time. But he expects Microsoft to be able to offer the more advanced capabilities perhaps as early as 2007.
Microsoft would not give a time frame.
Rob Enderle, principal analyst with the Enderle Group, said the decision “isn’t a good surprise.”
But he believes it will be crucial for Microsoft to have the new technology ready for the next version of Windows server software, due out in 2007. That’s because servers tend to hold much more data, making advanced searching and sorting capabilities more urgent.
Longhorn also will include new technology for enabling better visual presentation, such as three-dimensional rendering. And it will include ways to communicate more easily with other systems, such as Web-based applications or mobile devices.
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