Today we sit down for an interview with a Microsoft spokesperson to find out a little more about Microsoft’s current and future products. With all the news stories about Microsoft, this will allow Microsoft to give their side of the story. Lets see what they have to say.

The release date for Longhorn has been pushed back a few times so far.  What is Microsoft doing to prevent Longhorn from being delayed any longer?

We expect to deliver the first Beta version of Longhorn early this summer. Also, we expect Longhorn to be broadly available in all channels - retail full packaged product and on new PCs - in the second half of
2006.

What key features/technologies are going to be incorporated into Longhorn?

Our number one priority with Longhorn is nailing the fundamentals so that our partners and customers can use the PC with confidence.  When Longhorn is released in 2006, it will include:

• New information management tools to improve productivity, including fast desktop search and new, intuitive ways to organize files.
• The next generation developer platform to make it easier for developers to create breakthrough applications.
• Flexible and powerful tools to reduce deployment costs for enterprise customers, including technologies for image creation, editing, and installation. Longhorn will include integrated hot-patching, side-by-side install/migration and single ww image.
• Significant improvements in reliability, including a robust diagnostic infrastructure to detect, analyze and fix problems quickly, and new backup tools to keep data safe.
• Improved security and privacy tools including anti-malware, protected user accounts, secure startup and fast recovery.
• Performance enhancement to make computing fast and convenient. Performance enhancements include ‘instant’ on, smart caching and disk optimization.

We expect to share additional details on Longhorn features as we get closer to beta early this summer.

Many people were greatly disappointed when Microsoft announced that it was dropping WinFS from the initial release of Longhorn.  What are the advantages of WinFS and when can we expect to see it implemented in future Microsoft products?

There are very specific storage capabilities and other features included in WinFS that will not be in Longhorn.  We do expect our customers will be very pleased with  Longhorn’s search improvements.  But even more,
they will find great benefits its ability to organize and visualize information that goes beyond search.  Longhorn will be a significant step forward.  That said, WinFS will enable a developer to assign relationships in a way that goes beyond Longhorn.  We expect WinFS to go into beta when Longhorn ships during the second half of 2006.

How does Microsoft see the future of 64-bit computing?

We expect by the worldwide availability of Longhorn that all new PCs will be shipping with 64-bit processors. Customers will have the choice of 32-bit or 64-bit, but we expect that the benefits of 64-bit computing will make it mainstream.

Microsoft recently announced plans to release Internet Explorer 7 this summer.  Before this point Microsoft was planning to release IE7 with Longhorn.  What prompted this change in release dates and what new features will IE7 boast?

Online safety demands flexibility and timely responses to emerging threats. As a result, Microsoft is working to deliver a new version of Internet Explorer for Windows XP.  IE 7 is a major upgrade which focuses
on security. IE 7 will build on and broaden the progress made with SP2, while putting in place even stronger defenses against phishing, malware and spyware.  However, at this point it is too early to discuss the specific features that will be included in IE 7.

Several companies are urging consumers to use alternative browsers, such as Firefox, because Internet Explorer is “insecure and full of flaws.”  Does Microsoft have anything to say about these statements?

We recognize that customers will always have a choice in what browser they want to use on Windows and our goal is to make IE the best and most secure option available. In today’s world of evolving threats, online safety demands flexibility and timely responses to emerging threats, and we are responding to those demands. We’ve made great progress with the security enhancements for IE in SP2 and encourage all users to upgrade to SP2 as soon as possible. Windows AntiSpyware this summer will also be a great help in combating the spyware problem affecting IE users, but there is still progress to be made.

Microsoft recently announced that it was developing a new technology, called info-cards, which allows windows users to control their personal info when browsing the web.  How exactly do the info-cards work?

“Info-card”, based on the industry-wide WS-* Web services architecture, is designed to make the end users’ digital identity experience simpler and safer.  Also, “Info-card” helps end users manage multiple identities.  Just as you have multiple cards in your wallet, infocard helps you manage multiple identities issued by different providers -
e.g. financial institutions, governments, affinity programs

Is the info-card technology going to be available for XP or is it exclusively for Longhorn?

It is too early in the development process to discuss specifics about how the “Info-card” technology will be delivered.