Microsoft said the next version of the Windows operating system will ship in 2006. That's the first time that Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft has committed to a launch target for the ambitious upgrade to Windows, code-named Longhorn.

Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman and chief software architect, is leading the effort to ship the next major upgrade to Windows, which promises to boost the performance of the world's most widely used operating system.

In order to get Longhorn shipped on time, however, Microsoft said it had sacrificed a key component of the system that was to be shipped at the same time, the underlying file system for the software, called WinFS.

The new file system, based on database software architecture aimed at making it easier for users to find information stored on hard drives, will be shipped later, with a test, or beta version, of WinFS shipping along with Longhorn in 2006.

Analysts had been warning that Microsoft's plans for Longhorn were too ambitious and that they company would have to scale back plans if it didn't want to wait until 2007 to ship Longhorn. Industry experts had long expected Microsoft to set a 2006 target date for Longhorn's debut.

By: DocMemory
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