Longhorn: The big rug unravels

I haven't written about Longhorn since last year. I sensed the industry was being taken for a big PR and FUD ride, especially on the "uncertainty" portion of what FUD Longhorn was trying to inject into an industry captivated by Linux and open source. In spite of the thousands of words and video images out of Microsoft and its communities since then, my instincts were right. The Longhorn release of Windows is unraveling into shards, as Microsoft's Cairo did in the last decade; both failed to deliver on ways to overlay relational and object technology on Windows' old hierarchical folder structure. By the time Microsoft finishes building WINFS, it will face much stronger competition all around. It's my guess that at that point, Microsoft may have to take a much more open standards or open source approach to this whole area of technology. Of course, Microsoft will also weave another future-release rug in which to stuff users' wishes, and continue the FUD games.