Microsoft Professional Developers Conference 2000
In Orlando Florida Bill Gates is giving attendees of the PDC a look at the future of Windows as well at a look at he future of the Microsoft version of the Internet.
"The next two releases of Windows is where you'll see .Net built into the user interfaces,"
Whistler is a pre-alpha build of Microsoft's next generation of Windows operating system and it incorporates their just recently unveiled .Net initiative. Microsoft is "betting the company" on this NGWS (Next Generation Windows Services) architecture. Supposedly this new .net initiative blurs the line further between OS/Browser/Internet allowing users to save files to a "Microsoft community site" as well as creating a single identity, which will be useable transparently across the Net for user authentication.
"… The most profound changes in the UI"
This sounds to me like more PR than possibility, but it remains to be seen. Two of the features of this great new user interface are a natural-language search for web sites and documents and an Internet "system information agent". The whole idea is that you never have to open and shut multiple programs to do anything - "Universal Canvas is the idea that you no longer leave the browser," said Gates. Sounds alot Star Office to me.
"2002+" timeframe
The version of Windows containing all of these "revolutionary" features (code named Blackcomb) won't be available for at least a couple of years. One wonders will it even still be relevant in the fast moving "Internet Time". The real question may still be how many times a day does it crash.
