Despite earlier suggestions to the contrary (which we didn't believe anyway) Microsoft may be planning an interim version of Windows XP to fill the chasm between last year's rollout of XP itself, and the next big one, Longhorn, which quite possibly won't hit until 2006 or later. According to an eWeek piece by Mary Jo Foley (who we have missed greatly since Ziff Davis hid her in a paid-for newsletter), Microsoft is proposing to reach for the bottle again, having foresworn the demon release cycle treadmill just a few short months ago.
Well OK, maybe Mary Jo doesn't put it quite like that. She postulates a minor "Yukon" update that would ship in the 2003-4 timeframe. Yukon, aka what SQL Server did next, moves us towards the new file system roadmapped for Longhorn, and Microsoft is currently using the word to label the period between now and Longhorn. So although The Register ordinarily takes a fairly sour view of Microsoft's interim releases, which we feel tend to be service packs with a few flashy bits stuck on, there is some kind of argument for a Yukon 'XP 2,' or XP SE.
There will be Yukon technology that Microsoft will want to get out and in use in advance of Longhorn, which as described earlier this year is a hugely ambitious, ground-up rewrite and can therefore be expected to be a complete pig to get out of the door. You'll note that the way Bill told it back in June was that Microsoft had considered whether to go for one big bang or to make incremental changes, and had decided to go for the one big bang. But... if it does go for an interim, then would we not be seeing incremental changes starting to feed back into the roadmap after all?
News source: The Register
