Looking at Longhorn (WinFx) from a business point of view
Another very interesting day at the PDC. I went to a number of different sessions across a wide range of subjects. I decided that it is important to get a taste of all the different subjects being discussed at the PDC. As always what I have really enjoyed the stimulating conversations you have with people from Microsoft and other attendees at the PDC .
I am trying to look at Longhorn from a business viewpoint and starting to think what aspects of Longhorn would make a company decide to roll out Longhorn. Indigo is great and wonderful thing for developers but in the end it is just plumbing. I think of it being more important on the application server than on the client. Though I am sure the indigo people would disagree. Avalon and Aero are great but companies don't buy “cool” interfaces otherwise Apple would have much more than 2% of the market. Really it is the capabilities of winFs that could be of much more importance to the majority of companies.
I find winFS very interesting as two words instantly jump to mind Cairo and Hailstorm. There seems to be a lot the concepts that were in Hailstorm being implemented in winFS. Especially if you look at people and groups.
It is a shame that we have to wait so long to get the final software.
The “ask the experts” event was very informative and it is great to have the opportunity to ask any question you feel like asking to the people who design and develop the platform.
It was especially interesting to listen to the unofficial “Mono” BOF and then later to meet Miguel de Icaza.