Lazycoder

Monad not in Longhorn

Slashdot | New MS Shell Will Not Be In Longhorn

Great comment over at Slashdot about the latest removal from Longhorn…Shorthorn.

“It will take three to five years to fully develop and deliver,” said Microsoft Senior Vice President Bob Muglia this week at Tech Ed 2005.

*Jaw hits the floor*

Five years? Whoa. Five years ago, Windows 2000 was brand new. Five years ago, Mac users were still stuck with OS 9. Five years ago, the tech boom was still on. Five years ago, Bill Clinton was still President. Even worse is that Win32 is only ten years old!

If it takes Microsoft five years to get something out the door, I think they will soon find themselves becoming irrelevant in the desktop market. Confidence can be a good thing, but over-confidence can mean disaster. The bright side to this is that users will win when Microsoft is forced to go back to being an applications vendor instead of an OS vendor. Maybe they’ll even get around to making another BASIC that doesn’t suck.