It's still a long way off, but the technology industry is buzzing with the promise of Longhorn, Microsoft Corp.'s forthcoming operating system (OS). The crown jewel of the new OS is a new search
feature that will be driven by a technology called WinFS. Ostensibly, WinFS technology is designed to address the challenge of how to find usable information on the Web from any location and in any
format.
Microsoft says the new technology will break the browser/hard drive search barrier by making files stored on users' hard drives equally searchable to any information stored on the Web
under Longhorn's new search feature.
The new OS will purportedly revolve around search queries. Microsoft Software Engineer Samuel Druker provides an example: "Imagine typing in your explorer
Window [it will be called something different in Longhorn]. You type 'B' and all your pictures, documents, contacts, and other things that start with 'B' instantly show up. You continue and type 'U,'
'D,' 'G,' 'E' ..."
"Now," Druker adds, "in front of you are only documents that start with the name 'BUDGE.' All your budget documents are there. Your Excel spreadsheets. The Word documents.
Anything with the word 'budge' in them. Continue typing, and your available choices continue to be whittled down."
"With WinFS, searching and meta-data will be part of the operating system," says
Microsoft technology evangelist Robert Scoble in an interview. He says that this will enable files, documents, and data such as contact information to be connected in ways that were not previously
possible.
"I want to see far better tools for searching photos and connecting relationships between all types of files and photos," Scoble says. "For instance, why can't I just drag a name from my
contact list to associate that name with a face in a photo?"
Scoble notes that the way in which contact information is transferred between applications will be one of the changes initiated by
WinFS technology, "by putting a 'contacts' file type into the OS itself, rather than forcing applications developers to come up with their own contacts methodology."
According to Microsoft Senior
VP Bob Muglia, Microsoft is targeting small- to medium-sized enterprises (SME) with the server version of Longhorn. "In the short run, the one that we are driving the most is the small-business
space," Muglia told CNET's News.com. "I also look at the mid-size business segment. ... We think that we can continue to grow in the networking and database areas."
Enabling the wide-scale search
of corporate networks is a particularly attractive feature for SMEs, although this feature will not make it to the software's initial release.
It remains to be seen when Longhorn and WinFS will be
available to consumers and businesses. Both the client and server versions of Longhorn will be WinFS-enabled. The client version is slated for a mid-2006 release, while the server version won't be
available until 2007. Microsoft is known for delayed releases.