[News: Will Longhorn rope everything together?] DIR="LTR">

“Will Longhorn rope everything together? ......... With the regulatory reins somewhat loosened, Microsoft is moving ahead with plans to more tightly integrate the development of Windows, Office and its other programs. “

Wow. With the upcoming release of next generation Longhorn integrated stack, the Redmond double speak engine has shifted into high gear. Longhorn is probably still a year away from release. The job of re defining key “integration and inter operability” descriptive terms such as “tying”, “bolting”, “synchronizing”, “tighter integration” has begun.

With the expected November release of XP Office 2003, Microsoft begins the heavy task of migrating the 300 million strong Win32 ecolopoly to the XP Stack. This signals an overdue recognition on Microsoft's part that the era of pc-centric computing ahs ended, and they must make that transition to a collaborative computing model. The Fourth Wave has begun.

I would be the first to argue that collaborative computing is exactly defined by the Internet pervasive wave of tight integration between inter operable components across the entire stack of operating systems (devices, desktops, servers), applications, tools, and server suites, that Longhorn promises. The XP Stack model is beautifully tied together by the .NET framework, giving developers direct access to inter operale components that ride across the integrated stack.

I have to agree with fellow OOo enthusiast George Mitchell when he points out that, with the anti trust settlement, the government has put an end to many of Microsoft's reprehensibly predatory business practices. But it has not opened up in anyway a semblance of competition on the Windows platform. In fact, just the oppostie has happened. Bolting, tying, and privledged access to system internals will have Microsoft in total control of Windows opportunities for years to come. It's so pervasive, that we no longer think in terms of competition on the Windows platform. We think strictly in terms fo competition between platforms. As in Linux vs. Windows, or .NET vs J2EE.

More on “All The Mashed Potatoes”.

~ge~