So now we are coming up on the ‘new Longhorn’. OK, fine. But what are the specific security improvements that are going to make me get excited about upgrading? (Insert cricket sounds here) Ya, that is what I figured.

Having dramatically scaled back the vision for Longhorn, Microsoft is re-setting expectations to help drive enthusiasm around the delayed operating system.

Speaking at Microsoft’s Management Summit (MMS) in Las Vegas, Nevada, this week, chief executive Steve Ballmer was on the Longhorn stump calling the repeatedly delayed operating system a platform for the next 10 years.

He went on to outline six “key” features, or “pillars”.

Ballmer’s comments come after Microsoft last year ripped the guts from the Longhorn vision that had been laid-out by Microsoft’s chief software architect Bill Gates in 2003.

Speaking at the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles, California, that year, Gates equated Longhorn with Windows 95, calling Longhorn Microsoft’s biggest release of the decade. Gates unveiled three systems he believed would grant Longhorn that status: the WinFS storage subsystem - christened Longhorn’s “Holy Grail” by Gates - the WinFX mark-up architecture and Avalon XML interface, and the Indigo web services communications layer. [Read the rest]