(October 14, 2003) - Longhorn, Microsoft's next-generation operating system, will debut at the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles at the end of October. Redmond sources say that the company will distribute a pre-beta of Longhorn during Bill Gates' opening keynote, but the new "Aero" GUI won't be part of it. Microsoft is preparing a special PDC build of Longhorn that is separate and distinct from the main code fork, a build that will include nearly all the Longhorn technology except Aero. The online Longhorn Developer Center, featuring articles and discussions about the new OS, is set to launch on Oct. 27, during the PDC show.

"It's the biggest of all the waves we've ever done at Microsoft," said Sanjay Parthasaranthy, Microsoft's corporate VP of Platform Strategy and Partner Group. "We're handing out Longhorn code to developers for the first time... we get to share the Longhorn wave in great detail."

Beta 1 of Longhorn for mainstream corporate testing is due next year. The Longhorn Window client is expected to ship in late 2005 or early 2006, and the Longhorn Windows Server version will follow in about 18 months afterward. The first operating system to support the System Definition Model (SDM) for system management, Longhorn should lower the total cost of ownership for a Windows server or Windows-based data center. Longhorn is also expected to help corporations with deployment of collaborative solutions, reduce the cost of the IT infrastructure, and distribute "smart" applications that take advantage of Web services.

PDC attendees will receive technical details on Avalon, which Microsoft describes as "a brand new client platform for building smart, connected, media rich applications in Longhorn." Attendees can also expect previews of Visual Studio .NET 2004 ("Whidbey"); SQL Server 2004 ("Yukon"); "Indigo," Microsoft's new programming model and framework for building connected applications and Web services; WinFS (Windows Future Storage), Microsoft's new file system/NTFS resource manager; SDKs for Longhorn; and the Next Generation Secure Computing Base ("Palladium").