As Longhorn schedule firms up, product packaging evolves
WinInfo | at | by Mike
As Microsoft veers toward a mid-March 2005 Beta 1 release of its next generation operating system, codenamed Longhorn, the company is also starting to reevaluate which product editions it will ship.
The company is now committed internally to shipping Longhorn in May 2006. To meet this date, Microsoft has scheduled a March 16, 2005 Beta 1 release and a Q3 2005 Beta 2 release that will coincide with September's Professional Developers Conference (PDC) 2005 event in Los Angeles. Longhorn will then experience three release candidate builds, RC0, RC1, and RC2, before shipping in May 2006.