Microsoft lays out Windows Server future, defends virtualization cuts

Los Angeles — Microsoft last week laid out its road map for various versions of Longhorn over the next two years, including the elimination of 32-bit versions, and christened the new operating system Windows Server 2008.

In addition, company officials for the first time admitted they may have shot too high on the feature set for the Windows Server Virtualization (WSV) add-on to Longhorn, but said the remaining virtualization capabilities would still appeal to the broad market.

The announcements came at the company’s 16th annual WinHEC conference and the last that will feature Bill Gates as its keynote speaker. In July 2008, Gates will become a part-time employee and focus most of his time on philanthropic work.

Company officials reiterated that Windows Server 2008 and Windows Home Server would ship this year. In 2008, Microsoft will ship Centro, the code name for a server for small and midsize businesses, and Cougar, the next version of Small Business Server, and the next version of Windows Storage Server. These servers will be based on Windows Server 2008.

In 2009, Windows Server 2008 R2 will be released in 64-bit only and the era of 32-bit Windows server operating systems will be over.

The R2 version of the server is part of an interim release cycle Microsoft established in May 2004 that called for a major operating system upgrade every four years with a lesser R2 release in between.

“I believe the future will be standard and widely available software running on industry standard hardware,” said Bill Laing, general manager of the Windows server division, during his day-two keynote address.

Based on Microsoft’s current release cycle, the replacement for Windows Server 2008 would ship in 2011. Laing did not mention that next release.