Thanks Bink for this. A Microsoft legal document put a late 2004 expected ship date on the next client version of Windows, code-named "Longhorn," putting in black and white what Microsoft officials have been telling partners, customers and reporters in private conversations.
".NET will not be included by default in Windows until the next version of Windows, expected to be released in late 2004," Microsoft lawyers wrote in legal filings last week.
The legal filings were appeals in the private antitrust lawsuit brought by Sun Microsystems against Microsoft. At issue was U.S. District Judge Frederick Motz" order for Microsoft to include Sun"s Java Runtime Environment with all copies of Windows and Internet Explorer by June 4.
The Microsoft attorneys brought up the ship date in arguing that the order unfairly forces the company to include a competitors" Web services vehicle before it can put in its own. Microsoft distributed the first version of its .NET Framework just after shipping its last client operating system, Windows XP, in October 2001.