Last week, the PC industry gathered in Seattle for the annual Windows Hardware Engineering Conference. The main purpose is to discuss the kind of systems people will be selling in two or three years. In this case, wishful thinking suggests 64-bit desktop PCs with 3D graphics running the next version of Windows XP, code-named Longhorn.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, attempting to seduce the assembled geeks, promised "a really wonderful transition" to 64-bit computing, and pleaded with them to start writing 64-bit drivers to make the forthcoming hardware of practical use. It would be nice, but it's a good bet they won't. They are far more likely to repeat the mistakes they made with XP drivers.
For the more immediate future, Microsoft laid out its road map of forthcoming developments. The most important is Windows XP Service Pack 2, which will make XP more secure on the net. This long-overdue lockdown would have been even more useful if it wasn't a year late. At the same time, we should get XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 (codenamed Lonestar) and XP Media Center Edition 2005 (Symphony), followed by a 32-bit compatible XP 64-Bit Edition. There will also be new versions of Windows CE 5.0 (Macallan) for smartphones, Pocket PCs and portable media players from a range of companies, plus a new version of Windows Media Player.
The arrival of SP2, new versions of utilities such as WMP, and better wireless networking should prompt a new version of Windows XP, which I've already discussed here as XP Reloaded. It's not clear what Microsoft plans to do, but a "second edition" of XP would be easy to justify.
Forthcoming server software includes Service Pack 1 for Windows Server 2003 and Windows Small Business Server 2003, plus Windows Server 2003 64-Bit Edition, and Virtual Server 2005.
All of these enhancements are scheduled to appear before the end of this year, mostly free.
Windows Server 2003's SP1 will also include Windows PE, or Preinstallation Environment. It's a bunch of code that runs from a UFD (USB Flash drive) and can restart a dead or broken system. Microsoft reckons that, with PE, you will be able to throw away your boot floppies. But home users will not get it until Longhorn appears, and that has not even reached beta (test) status. This will push Longhorn to late 2006, if not later.
On the hardware side, Intel made the shock announcement that it has stopped the development of Tejas, the next version of the Pentium 4, and will instead accelerate the work it was doing on dual-core processors (see Inside IT News).
Texas Instruments demonstrated a Split-Chassis PC platform, which allows the parts of a PC to be divided between two boxes, connected by TI's 2.5Gbps XIO2000 PCI-Express-to-PCI Bridge. The idea - which has been tried before - is to put the user-touched parts of the PC on the desktop while putting the bulky bits on the floor. But since it is now possible to make PCs very small, this may be an idea whose time has already gone.
Links Jack Schofield's column
Microsoft WinHEC
www.microsoft.com/whdc/winhec
Windows Home Concept white paper
www.windowsfordevices.com/files/misc/whc.pdf
Press coverage
www.winsupersite.com
www.extremetech.com/category2/0,1556,42141,00.asp
http://news.com.com/2009-1012_3-5205819.html
www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,1995,1588196,00.asp
