Longhorn And The Linux Long-game

[armjan]

Longhorn and the Linux long-game

Catherine Everett

ZDNet UK

March 09, 2005, 12:20 GMT

 

The next instalment of Windows will act as the cornerstone in Microsoft’s ongoing battle with IBM and Linux

 

When the next version of Microsoft's operating system eventually launches, it will be into an environment unlike any faced by its predecessors.

 

Microsoft has said publicly that Beta 1 of Longhorn would arrive by the end of 2005, though internally, the company has been aiming for a release by the middle of this year. The final version of Longhorn is slated for the second half of 2006. But regardless of exactly when the launch finally happens, the threat from Linux on the server and client, and the quiet bleed to a thin computing model, has created some stiff challenges for the software giant, say industry watchers.

 

"We've seen a growing use of thin-client browser-based environments and this plays very strongly to the Linux desktop community. Longhorn is certainly Microsoft's attempt to reassert control against Linux and open source thin clients." says Neil Macehiter, a partner at MWD Advisors.

 

As a result, Microsoft is talking less about rich desktop applications, exploited locally on the client, and more about hybrid or 'smart' clients, which it is positioning as "the best of both worlds".

 

This is, according to Mark Quirk, head of technology at Microsoft's developer and platform group, because smart clients provide customers with the benefits of thin clients such as ease of deployment and administration, while also enabling them to undertake local processing.

 

"We see more people talking about smart clients than Linux. People want rich applications that they can deploy and manage centrally and you can do this with .Net today, but Longhorn will make it much easier," he says.

 

From a strategic point of view, however, it is actually the server rather than the client version of Longhorn that is more critical to Microsoft due to the long-term threat posed by Linux at the back-end.

 

While the majorityof defections to Linux are currently taking place at the expense of Unix because migration is easier and the two can be looked after using similar management techniques, "this will change over time and Linux will seriously begin to threaten Microsoft sales as well as act as a replacement to it", says Macehiter.

 

"Given Microsoft's dominant position on the desktop, it's trying to make it play as well as possible with Windows server because it increases the barrier to taking out the server," he explains.

 

Olivier Nguyen van Tan, chief operating officer of Pierre Audoin Consultants, believes Microsoft will push its "integration innovation" message forcefully as equalling higher levels of productivity and lower cost for customers.

 

"Open source is a very big problem for Microsoft because it has seen open source and Linux coming in and winning market share. It can't fight on price because of value issues, the need for R&D investment and the fact that it has to maintain margins, so the only thing it can do is to provide another vision," he says.

 

The pitch from Microsoft will be that it can provide an integrated infrastructure solution where all of the individual elements such as the client and server operating systems, database, applications and the like will work closely together.

 

The software giant will try to position itself as a one-stop provider and highlight the fact that this level of integration in the software stack is simply not available in the Linux or open source world, although a raft of start-ups have emerged in the US over the last 12 months to try and address this very issue.

 

"Customers love open source because it's cheap and they think it's more reliable and secure than Microsoft, but you need different pieces and the problem is integration, which is real. This costs a lot of money so Microsoft is trying to fight it here and Longhorn is a big piece of that strategy," says consultant Nguyen van Tan.

 

He claims the only other player that can seriously rival Microsoft in its breadth of offerings is IBM, and Big Blue is basing its strategy for control of an organisation's infrastructure on Linux and Java.

 

IBM's message here is that its infrastructure framework is based on open standards that work in heterogeneous environments and which third parties can plug their offerings into.

 

As its infrastructure offerings conform to the concepts of portability and interoperability, IBM claims to be providing freedom of choice to customers that don't want to be forced down a pure Microsoft route or end up locked into the .Net development architecture and data model, of which Longhorn is a foundation stone.

 

"IBM and Microsoft are the two dominant industry players and it's going to be very much a battle royal to win mind share, particularly in the enterprise community. But it will be an interesting battle because they're both going in with very different weapons," says MWD's Machehiter.

 

IBM, on the one hand, comes from a position of strength on the server side. It has a reputation for trustworthiness and reliability in the data centre, a growing developer base and it is pushing a development framework that it is not under its control, but which supports heterogeneous systems and works well in an open source environment.

 

IBM is also starting to make a play on the desktop by promoting its Workplace strategy and particularly the front-end Websphere portal piece, which supports Microsoft's Office applications. The aim is to try and use the portal not only to control the user experience, but also as a Trojan horse to sell its backend infrastructure offerings.

 

Microsoft, on the other hand, is coming to the fight from a position of dominance on the desktop. It has a growing presence in the server space, a strong developer base and complete control of the development framework in the shape of .Net, which is geared to a Windows-based world — although again third party tools and applications can plug into it.

 

While Microsoft is always careful to fudge the portability message, it is now pushing the idea of interoperability strongly.

 

As Quirk points out, Bill Gates, the company's chairman and chief software architect, even sent out an executive letter to customers a couple of months ago indicating the importance of just this issue. "It's not a change of heart, although it might be a change in industry perception that we support interoperability."

 

"We've always had one of the most integrateable [sic] platforms, but the change has been in integration models. In the past, you had lots of middleware pieces gluing proprietary systems, but these days we use XML as a way of describing data. The old way of thinking of Windows as a proprietary system that only works with our products is no longer true," he claims.

 

But as Macehiter indicates: "The battle is not going to be won by locking customers in, in terms of interoperability protocols as in the bad old days with Corba and Dcom, so both parties want to co-operate here. They know that the battle will be won at the server and client level, so it's going to be an interesting one."

 

Van Tan, however, believes that neither vendor is likely to emerge as the dominant player. "It's not a question of who is going to win the war as neither of them are going to disappear in the next 10 days. The important question is what the balance between the two companies will be and we think it will be closer to 50-50 or maybe 45-55."

 

At the moment, he says, Microsoft with its .Net infrastructure "is still the challenger", but how this might change is very difficult to forecast into the future.

 

Nonetheless, there is a third — and currently more pressing — business reason as to why Longhorn is a crucial product for Microsoft, and that relates to revenues.

 

Macehiter explains: "One of the biggest challenges that Microsoft faces, and it's something that Gates has admitted, is the competition provided by its own installed base. Microsoft has to provide customers with compelling reasons to upgrade and that means increasingly getting them to sign up to the Software Assurance scheme because it provides it with predictable revenues."

 

Software Assurance is a software maintenance programme by which mainly enterprise customers pay a set annual fee and receive upgrades without having to pay extra as part of the deal.

 

The issue is, however, that, while such contracts last for three years, Microsoft released its last desktop version of Windows for the desktop, XP, in October 2001, and its last server product, Windows Server 2003, in April 2003.

 

As a result, points out Annette Jump, a principal analyst at Gartner: "Many of the support deals run out in 2006, so Microsoft can't really stretch the gap any more as it would start to have an effect."

 

While this is not so much an issue with small businesses, it an important consideration with mid-sized and large customers, she explains, because "they assume that they'll at least get something new. But if they don't feel they've had much value over the last three years, the danger is that they won't renew their enterprise agreements".

 

This feeling is particularly marked in Europe, she adds, which, over the last six to nine months, has led Microsoft to try and "add value through initiatives such as training and support to persuade companies to sign up again and in some cases, it's even been reducing prices".

 

Therefore, Microsoft will hit its 2006 deadline to ship the desktop version of Longhorn at any price, followed by the server version in 2007. According to Quirk, the client release is expected to appear in the second half of next year, and the server edition a year later.

 

But as Macehiter concludes: "Microsoft has been deliberately vague on what's in Longhorn and what's not. To hit its dates, it doesn't want to commit to functionality, and it will compromise, drop or reduce the scope of that functionality if it impacts on its ability to deliver. It's a very important issue for Microsoft and it's being very pragmatic about it."

Edited March 11, 2005 by armjan

[armjan]

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[armjan]

Longhorn has already survived several major delays, intense scrutiny from the industry and a radical redesign of its features.

 

But the toughest test for Microsoft's next release of Windows is still to come: Will anyone buy it?

 

Even though it will be five years after Windows XP's debut, Microsoft could still face a tough sell when it releases Longhorn next year. With past updates, users had clamored for more stability and security, but analysts say people are pretty happy with Windows XP.

 

"Microsoft for the very first time is going to be faced with the challenge of being the player whose (operating system) is 'good enough'" as is, said Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg.

 

The challenge is one Microsoft has tackled for years with its Office software, but it's a relatively new problem for the Windows side of the house.

 

Microsoft managed to turn the launch of Windows 95 into a major event, with loads of mainstream press and consumer enthusiasm. However, subsequent releases have been considerably more subdued affairs, particularly the launch of Windows XP, which came just a few weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Even with its longest-ever time between OS releases, Gartenberg said, Microsoft will have to work to build demand for Longhorn.

 

"Microsoft is going to have to find a way to take a page from the Steve Jobs playbook and make an operating system that not only looks interesting, but feels interesting," Gartenberg said.

 

Longhorn was supposed to achieve the sort of "quantum leap" Microsoft managed with Windows 95. The software maker began talking about Longhorn at a developer conference in the fall of 2003, years before the software would be ready. Microsoft spoke of it as a major advance, to which significant upgrades of other Microsoft software would be tied.

 

But faced with the prospect of having to further delay the OS, Microsoft decided last year to scale back its key components, and with them, some of Longhorn's ambitions.

 

The result is that Microsoft is on track to deliver a new version of Windows next year, but it has been unclear about what, exactly, the OS will contain.

 

"We know pretty much definitively that Longhorn is the next version of the Windows client," Gartenberg said. "Everything else goes downhill from there."

 

Things should become clearer next month when Microsoft offers an updated preview version of Longhorn at WinHEC, its Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, in Seattle. A more full-featured beta version has been promised by June.

 

What if you released an OS and no one came?

A lot has changed since Windows XP debuted in 2001. Wireless networking has become much more common, as have devices with Bluetooth. USB flash drives and other portable storage devices have essentially replaced the floppy disk, but they've brought along unique security issues.

 

Still, analysts say Windows XP has aged well, particularly with the Service Pack 2 upgrade that debuted last year and the Tablet and Media Center editions that have seen several updates in recent years.

 

"I don't hear anyone saying 'I've got to have Longhorn tomorrow,'" said Yankee Group analyst Laura DiDio.

 

Of course, a lot of that may have to do with the fact that Microsoft has been very quiet in recent months. Some details about Longhorn have emerged, but they shed only a modest amount of light on what Microsoft will use as the key selling points for its operating system.

 

At its lowest level, Microsoft is building Longhorn using the same code as Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, which lets the software maker take advantage of the security enhancements it made with Windows XP Service Pack 2--as well as the added support for 64-bit chips the company will debut next month, coincident with the release of SP1.

 

Microsoft has previewed two of the key technologies it has planned for Longhorn: its Avalon presentation engine and Indigo, its Web services architecture. Indigo is designed to let programs share data more easily, while Avalon should pave the way for programs that are more visually appealing. But most of the software that will take advantage of the technologies is not likely to arrive until sometime after Longhorn.

 

By the time Longhorn ships, Microsoft plans to have a new version of its Internet Explorer browser, though the company said last month that it will make IE 7 available for Windows XP, a break from the company's mantra that browser updates would require an upgrade of the operating system.

 

Microsoft has not talked in detail about its plans to integrate desktop search into Longhorn, but Gartner analyst Michael Silver said that's a clear requirement.

 

"People want that now and they have to look to third parties," he said, noting that Apple Computer will have significant search built into its Tiger operating system, which ships this year.

 

Mobile computing moves

At last year's WinHEC, Microsoft outlined some of the features it was evaluating that it said would improve mobile computing in Longhorn. Among the ideas it was toying with were the ability for notebook computers to have a second, easy-to-access interface for key tasks such as playing a DVD or consulting an address book. Another feature the company outlined was a synchronization engine that could make sure information is kept current between one or more PCs as well as on devices such as portable music players and flash memory cards.

 

The software maker also talked about a "mobility center" that would bring together controls for laptop-related settings--such as display, power management and networking--much as the Security Center does in XP Service Pack 2. A user could also create one profile that turned up performance for delivering a presentation, while a different "on the plane" profile might throttle down the power usage and turn off wireless connections. Such settings today must be changed individually and are scattered throughout the operating system.

 

It is unclear whether things such as the mobility center or DVD-playing interface are still on tap for Longhorn.

 

Longhorn will definitely include improvements for wireless networking, both Wi-Fi and lower speed cellular networks. A Microsoft representative said last week that simplifying home networking is "a key focus" for Longhorn. A new Network Explorer will show all the PCs and devices that are connected to a network, and the company plans to offer several options for securing a wireless network, something that remains quite difficult for most Windows XP users.

 

The company is also planning to bring back into the Longhorn client release some elements of its program to help businesses secure their network. The "Network Access Protection" feature, which helps businesses scan and update machines before they add them to a corporate network, has been moved around on Microsoft's roadmap several times. Most recently, the software maker took the feature out of this year's Microsoft Server 2003 "R2" release, leaving the impression it would not come into Windows until a server version of Longhorn in 2007.

 

However, Microsoft corporate vice president Jawad Khaki said in a Web chat last week that some elements of NAP would come in next year's Longhorn version.

 

"It will ship with some out-of-box capabilities to enforce policy compliance," he said. "Additionally, we are working with 40-plus partners who are industry leaders in antivirus, intrusion detection/prevention, network access devices and much more to support the NAP architecture."

 

Security, more broadly, is likely to be a key point of emphasis for both Microsoft's developers and its marketing pitch. The security work Microsoft did for the Windows XP Service Pack 2 upgrade shifted a good chunk of the Windows team off of Longhorn, though its efforts there have no doubt continued into Longhorn.

 

One thing that has changed, said Yankee Group's DiDio, is that businesses are significantly happier with Windows security now than they were a year ago. In a soon-to-be-published Yankee Group survey, Microsoft was given an average rating of 7.6 out of 10, up from ratings of well below five a year ago.

 

"We haven't had any major viruses or worms, knock wood, in the last few months," she said.

 

It is unclear whether that newfound support for Microsoft will make it easier or harder for the company to sell Longhorn as a security enhancement. On the one hand, customers are liking what they're seeing from the software giant. At the same time, they may feel more secure with the operating system they have than they might have felt a year ago.

 

The company is also looking to bring back some old ideas. It's working on a technology called "info-cards" in which consumers could securely store information that is to be shared with online commerce sites. Based on the WS-* Web services architecture, info-cards will help customers manage multiple identities, Microsoft said, much as people have multiple cards in their wallet: credit cards, bank cards and membership cards.

 

In many ways, the idea is a throwback to Microsoft's Passport authentication program, which met with only tepid interest from e-commerce companies and others. The software maker said it is talking with partners but would not say who it might have lined up in support of the info card plan.

 

DiDio said she sees an opportunity for Microsoft to expand the info card idea beyond the consumer and use it as part of an improved identity management option for businesses. She notes that one of the few bright spots for Novell in its recent financial report was the nearly $60 million the company pulled in from its new identity management product.

 

"Clearly you are going to see them expand on the idea of the info card," she said. "They always start with the consumer stuff and then go up to the server."

 

Keep it simple

Gartner's Silver said Microsoft should also make sure the upgrade process is as painless as possible, since many people are content with Windows XP. As a model, he pointed to a new compatibility tool Microsoft developed for XP Service Pack 2. The software tool works with machines that have not yet been updated to identify programs and behaviors that could be a problem once a machine is brought up to date.

 

"I think it's a good example of what they really need," he said. "OS upgrades are one of the more painful things people do. It's like ripping out your pipes every four years."

 

Though Microsoft has been quiet for many months about Longhorn, Gartenberg said he doesn't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

 

"Before you can start generating enthusiasm, you have to figure out what you are generating enthusiasm for," he said.

 

During the next 18 months, though, Microsoft will have to start gradually building its case for Longhorn.

 

"That's the challenge--to start getting the right people excited about it, without slowing down the wrong people, that is, the people just now deploying Windows XP, or SP2 on top of Windows XP."