Ballmer confirms 2006 launch date of Longhorn

Chicago (IL) - Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer promised in his keynote at the TechNet/MSDN conference to release the next generation of Windows in 2006. After a number of delays, it is the first time that the executive publicly announced the year in which the operating system can be expected.

Ahead of Ballmer, Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates had hinted in March of this year to 2006 as likely release date and repeated his statement in August. A broad release of the software, code-named Longhorn, apparently is targeted for "sometime in 2006." Ballmer hinted at a late-year release, pointing at "around December 31."

Ballmer did not go into detail about a launch date for the server version of Longhorn. Sources however said that the target date for remains 2007. A preliminary version of the operating system is likely to be made available to selected users at the end of this year.

According to the executive Microsoft is working on several new features for the software such as using the error reporting functionality to get general feedback from users and the capability to automatically remove a computer from a network to isolate systems with security problems.