TAKE 10 A DAY FOR LONGHORN: Once envisioned as a minor upgrade to Windows XP, Windows "Longhorn" took on all-new importance in early 2002 when Microsoft decided to make this Windows release an all-encompassing major upgrade with a new security architecture called Palladium, a hardware 3D-enabled user interface, a brand-new, database-backed storage engine, and many more new features. However, this major release has been delayed over and over. Microsoft execs have recently admitted that Longhorn will not ship until 2006. So why the delays? Aside from the obvious, there are rumors circulating (aren't there ALWAYS rumors circulating about MSFT?) that the software giant is quietly patenting everything they can think of to make sure that Longhorn, at the very least, provides an ample stream of licensing revenue. As one MSFT dissenter remarked: "You want to know one reason why Microsoft is taking so long to come out with Longhorn? It wants to make darn sure that it's as Linux and open-source unfriendly as humanly possible . . . You see, Microsoft is busy patenting everything it can lay its hands on . . . In fact, Microsoft is now building up its patent arsenal, applying for a rather amazing 10 patents a day. The idea isn't to ensure that Microsoft makes a fair profit from its patents; it's to make sure that no one else can write fully compatible software."

Here we go again . . .