Security and Web integration key to Longhorn
InfoWorld | at | by Mike
Microsoft let loose early bits of Longhorn at its Professional Developer Conference (PDC) here and for the first time provided more extensive details around the key components of its next Windows operating system expected out in 2006.
Longhorn is build up of three components on top of a layer of "fundamentals" that includes security and technology to make sure applications and drivers don't conflict. On top of those fundamentals sit Avalon, WinFS and Indigo, the codenames that with the Longhorn name itself have fed the rumor mills for the past years.
Microsoft officials, visibly happy that they could now talk about what they have been working on in secrecy, provided lengthy and deeply technical explanations of the technology behind the codenames. To be brief, Longhorn promises to give users a secure operating system with a new way to store files, revamped graphics and tight links to the Web.
For software developers, the operating system, though bringing a myriad of changes, should be easier to develop for and it will also run existing applications, dating all the way back to the days of DOS, the disk operating system.