How do you keep a large team of developers on a big project motivated during the inevitable slippages? Easy: you just pretend the project is already complete. The next release of Windows is a full two years away, but Microsoft executives and key Longhorn developers will be partying hard this autumn to celebrate the "gold" release of the software. A gala event is being planned, naturally enough, at the Longhorn Bar and Grill in the Whistler-Blackcomb ski resort.
"Great music, warm staff, tasty food and the natural ambiance that comes from the Mountains has made the Longhorn an integral part of the Whistler experience for 15 years," the bar boasts. Although look out for the "raucous ghost" of Country Dick Montana, who played his final performance at the Longhorn before succumbing to a heart aneurism, and whose spectral presence is "credited with many bizarre happenings". This, perhaps, being the most bizarre.
Earlier this week NeoWin made a firm prediction of a firm ship date for Longhorn: 15 August 2005. This surreal claim now appears to make some sense. If Longhorn is virtually finished two years early, that clears the way for a RTM (Release to Manufacturing) party.