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Jim Allchin is the Group Vice President for Platforms at Microsoft. The Channel 9 team sat down with Jim yesterday and asked him to share his thoughts on the updated Windows "Longhorn" plan and schedule that was announced on Friday.  Jim gives an overview of the updates to the plan and schedule, how Microsoft reached the decision, and how it affects developers. We listened carefully to customers over the past year and prioritized Windows XP SP2 security enhancements over other efforts.   This has resulted in good things for our customers. We’ve have also listened to customers’ views on Longhorn and have heard they want improved user productivity, easier deployment, increased reliability, enhanced security as well as the many innovations we’ve been working on. We’ve had to make some tradeoffs to deliver the features corporate customers, consumers and OEMS are asking for in a reasonable timeframe.  The announcements we made are based on this feedback. On Friday Microsoft made three announcements: 1.) Microsoft is reaffirming our commitment for broad availability of the Windows “Longhorn” Client in 2006.   2.) Microsoft plans to make elements of Longhorn’s WinFX programming model available for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.  This will enable developers to write WinFX applications that run on hundreds of millions of PCs and offer these next generation of applications sooner. Specifically, Microsoft plans to deliver the “Avalon” and “Indigo” pillars of Longhorn’s WinFX programming model for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.  3.) We originally planned to ship a new data storage system codenamed “WinFS” when we released the Longhorn Client. In order to deliver Longhorn’s innovations to customers as quickly as possible, we now intend to deliver WinFS after the initial availability of Longhorn client.  We continue to be committed to WinFS.  It is expected to beta when Longhorn client is broadly available.   The Windows “Longhorn” Server Operating System continues to be expected to be available in 2007. Download the Video Watch the Video