It seems many of you are willing to bide your time and not rush into trying out Longhorn any time soon, according to results from a poll recently on Systems Management Pipeline. To refresh your memories, the question was: Is Longhorn a long way away for you? More than 60 percent of respondents said they weren't even ready to plan for planning for Longhorn. That's a pretty significant number, one that Redmond can be none too pleased with.Why might you feel that way? Well, a few of you (7 percent) don't use Microsoft at all. So, you are naturally out of the mix. But only 17 percent said they'd be working with the beta very soon. So what are the rest of you waiting for? Here are my surmises, based on some not-so-scientific research.
- Stop the insane bundling. This causes bloating and that causes irritation among users. Or, include the software, but improve performance. Your choice, Microsoft.
- Better searching ability. This should just be a basic, no-brainer, fellas.
- Improve networking capability.
- Nail down security.
What do you think? Agree? Have other suggestions? We've got slightly less than a year and a half to go before Longhorn is released. There's still time to inject some of the coolness factor into this that graced, for example, Mac's OS X Tiger. Let me know what you think Microsoft needs to do to make this a "wow" product, and not just "XP SP 3."
Who knows, it may (underline "may") be possible that you may consider Longhorn one of your favorite software programs released during the past 10 years. (Or not.) But because Longhorn hasn't been released yet, it isn't eligible anyway for our current contest, "The Software Hall of Fame." So think about what your favorite app is, and just clue us in by writing 200 to 500 words about the product. If we choose yours, you could win an iPod.
And don't forget, send me your Longhorn suggestions asap.It seems many of you are willing to bide your time and not rush into trying out Longhorn any time soon, according to results from a poll recently on Systems Management Pipeline. To refresh your memories, the question was: Is Longhorn a long way away for you? More than 60 percent of respondents said they weren't even ready to plan for planning for Longhorn. That's a pretty significant number, one that Redmond can be none too pleased with.
