Windows XP Release 2 coming

10/22/2004 9:27:22 AM, by Ken "Caesar" Fisher

If you thought that Service Pack 2 for Windows XP was the last of the
big updates, think again. Speaking yesterday at the Gartner Symposium
in Orlando, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that a number of
important security initiatives were underway for Windows, some of
which would be part of a pre-Longhorn "Release 2" for Windows XP.
Beyond noting this, Ballmer did not disclose any details regarding
when we might see R2, or just what it would contain. In fact, he
didn't give any time frames for anything, be it Longhorn, Windows
Server 2005, Office 12, or when Steinbrenner plans to make his life
easier by recruiting Clone War rejects.

Our man on the scene noted that several people understood this talk of
Release 2 to be a kind of rebranding of "XP Reloaded," but our gut
feeling here is that we're looking at something different. From our
talks with Microsoft (both on and off the record), XP Reloaded was
nothing but an internal name for what we're seeing now: the big 2004
refresh, featuring not only Windows XP SP2, but also Media Center
Edition 2005. It's important to note that in Microsoft's eyes, MCE
2005 is the start of something special, and by special I mean a new OS
that won't be relegated to entertainment centers in the home if
Microsoft has their way. Think XP Home + MCE. But I shan't get into
that now, because there are bigger obstacles to address.

Microsoft has had to change its rhetoric regarding Longhorn for one
simple reason: the original plan was too aggressive. Having bitten off
more than they can chew, Ballmer is amping up talk of Longhorn now as
a kind of cluster or wave of technologies and features-features that
may show up before Longhorn, with Longhorn, or long after Longhorn.
While the full WinFS implementation is now known to be too grandiose
for Longhorn, Ballmer has hinted that other features may be delayed as
well. In the case of WinFS, Ballmer said the real deal will ship for
free to Longhorn users at the time Longhorn Server ships. I'll put
five-spot on late 2007.

Ballmer also considers Windows Server 2005 and Office 12 as part of
the technology wave, upon which he hopes scores of IT execs will
happily surf as soon as possible. Where's Jeff Spicoli when you need
him?

Just as important, Longhorn delays have stretched the company out, and
even the much needed release of SP2 can't stave off the future. By
most analytical guesstimates, we're just under two years from Longhorn
shipping, which means we're at least three years from it being
anything approaching common in corporate environments. This massive
gap needs to be filled, but how might they do it? For a Release 2
scenario, you have two major options. First, it could just be another
massive service pack. But if that were the case, why not just speak of
a Service Pack 3 or 4? The vibe we get (and this is a vibe partly
induced by a mere 45 minutes of sleep last night) is that R2 is going
to be even more of a so-called point release than SP2 was.

That makes us wonder about cost. Would R2 be a commercial product with
added security features? Keep in mind that the company is likely still
planning to release its own anti-virus application. (This might help
explain why SP2's "Security Center" seems to be about as clued in
regarding AV status as your average guy on the street. While the
firewall and updates improvements have been well received, the AV
monitor is a bit of a joke at best, and an annoyance at worst.)

A key point that must be stressed is that, sans software
subscriptions, the typical pay-for-play scheme only includes updates
that address security flaws. With SP2, we saw not only flaws
addressed, but new functionality added that really changed key
components of the OS. The question is, is that scenario likely to
carry a price tag in the future, or will the font of altruism rush
forth with another free update for XP?

All of this is, of course, quite a bit of speculation generated by
just a few minutes of pep talk at a symposium for the ubernerds (and I
mean that kindly). As always, we'll keep you up to date on what we
know, and what we think we know, and what other people think they
know.

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