InfoWorld last week published a rumour, quoting unnamed sources at Microsoft, that Longhorn, the software giant's long-delayed next-generation Windows operation system, was being delayed yet again. According to the rumour, the early 2005 Beta 1 release of Longhorn will now ship in October 2005 and correspond with the 2005 Professional Developer Conference (PDC); that means Beta 2 won't ship until 2006, and the final release of Longhorn would be delayed until 2007.

The delays, naturally, are caused by Windows XP SP2, and this is the part of the rumour that has me thinking. I've seen the ship schedule at Microsoft, and it clearly places precedence on XP SP2 first, followed by Windows Server 2003 SP1, which itself was just delayed from late 2004 to early 2005. So the Longhorn delay, sadly, makes sense. So is it true? I hope not: Longhorn has been delayed so often, it's taken on mythic status. And not the good kind.

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