The smart thing, he added, would be for Microsoft to run Longhorn through a long public beta, considering the amount of major changes to the OS that it plans to introduce. Microsoft has done that before as recently as with Office 2003; during the suite's public beta testing, Microsoft extended the program by several months, delaying the release of Office from early summer 2003 to October.
Another problem with tracking Microsoft release dates, said Wilcox, is that the company's managers and executives sometimes mean public preview editions or the final release of the code -- both of which can be months before actual availability -- when they use the word "release."
"Apply that to the letter of the law, and Microsoft could make 2006," Wilcox said. "But realistically, for most people, Longhorn is a 2007 product."
If Microsoft wants to make good on Gates' 2006 release of Longhorn, it could conceivably shift gears in a number of ways, said Wilcox.
Among the options available to Microsoft would be to ditch some of the Longhorn features Microsoft outlined last October at its developer conference. "If Microsoft begins dumping features overboard, an earlier release is possible," said Wilcox. "The classic case of Microsoft doing that was with Windows 95."
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