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Nov. 16 - Nov. 23, 2003 |
Bill Gates' Microsoft Revolution
The long-awaited Longhorn is newest entry in Redmond giant's operation systems
By Alessandro Cancian
Originally Published: 2003-11-09
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Screen shot from MIcrosoft\'s Longhorn operation system
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Whether this really is the most important release since the debut of Windows 95, as Bill Gates claims, remains to be seen; what's for sure is that Longhorn is still far from seeing the light of day.
Longhorn, codename for the successor to Windows XP, is Microsoft's newest entry in the world of operation systems. Gates, deus ex machina of the Redmond-based company, introduced the future OS in his opening speech at Microsoft's 2003 Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles.
Jim Allchin, group vice president of Microsoft's Platform Group, explained that Longhorn is based on three new technologies: the Avalon graphic engine, the WinFS file archival system, and the Indigo communication architecture.
Avalon is a graphic subsystem developed as a replacement for the Graphics Device Interface and a foundation for the Longhorn shell. It will supply a unified architecture for GUI, documents and media, and it will support the XML standard. Alongside consolidated technologies, such as DirectX and ClearType, Avalon will sport a vector graphic engine - along the lines of that used in Flash - that will enable developers to incorporate multimedia content in Windows applications without recurring to heavy bitmap images or Windows Media Player.
Avalon will exploit new generation graphic cards to give Aero, the graphic interface that in Longhorn will take the place of Luna (Win XP), an appearance richer in effects and animations, somewhat resembling Mac OS X.
Aero, still in its initial stages of development, missed the Los Angeles event, even though several rumours and screenshots have been circulating on the Net for the past few weeks.
The Avalon/Aero match will support new styles, new interface elements, and a resolution of 120 pixel/inch: these characteristics, in addition to improving the look of Windows, should help users organize and distribute information in a more intuitive and efficient way.
During the conference, Gates displayed a new toolbar, on the right-hand side of the desktop, that in Longhorn will replace the traybar adding new functions such as a newsticker based on a RSS feed, a big clock, and an address book.
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