Microsoft has said that the new version of their Windows operating system (code named Longhorn) will begin to ship to the end user in the fall of 2006.

Despite long delays in terms of release dates of past Microsoft operating systems, Sanjay Parthasarathy (who is the V.P of Microsoft’s Developer & Platform Evangelism Group) says, “I’m very confident we’re going to make next year.” Apparently, the Longhorn server edition will be made available mid 2007, and the client edition in the fall of 2006. However, some of the new features (such as ‘WinFS’, and the full implementation of ‘Monad’) will not be included with the first release of Longhorn, and will be delayed until future Longhorn releases.

Mr. Parthasarathy also stated that the developer edition of Windows Longhorn will be on display for demo at the company’s Professional Developer’s Conference in September 2005 in LA.

As of yet, the final release of hardware system requirements for both Longhorn editions have yet to be finalized. At this time, Microsoft has decided that computers running Windows Longhorn will require 256 MB of RAM (minimum), and 512 MB (recommended). Due to the many new graphic intense features that will be rolled out in Longhorn, there is speculation that hardware involving graphics will need to be superior when compared to many computers.