Longhorn is the end of an era for Microsoft. An end marked by not one but multiple deaths of projects associated with the Longhorn name. On the other hand Microsoft is moving forward. 2007 is a year that brought right from the start Windows Vista and the Office 2007 System. And Microsoft is yet to release Windows Server 2008, Windows Home Server, the first beta for Windows Vista Service Pack 1. So the rest of 2007 is still something to look forward to.

As far as Windows Server 2008 is concerned, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates was the one to stick the final nail in the Longhorn coffin, at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) 2007 in Los Angeles in mid May. Gates then baptized Windows Server codename Longhorn as Windows Server 2008. Iain McDonald, Director of Project Management for Windows Server, had something to do with Longhorn, and Whistler and Blackcomb and he witnessed first hand one of the deaths of Longhorn, as Mary Jo Foley pointed out.

"I do have to say that the Longhorn name going away is a little sad to me - it's the end of the naming that I started the week after we shipped Windows 2000 in December 1999," McDonald said on his blog. "I went to Whistler with some friends (...) I was in the terrain park on whistler - I lined up a jump & had a thought on the way onto the jump. "What will we call the next release" has nothing to do with that & thinking often is not the best idea when going for a jump. I blew the jump bad & landed on my head. (...) Lying on the ground for 10 minutes made me realize next release would be called Whistler."

The other deaths of Longhorn are connected to the development process of Windows Vista. Back in 2004, when Microsoft rethought its approach to the operating system, Longhorn faded in the background. And then again in June 2007 with Microsoft killing off the Windows Longhorn Reloaded project. Longhorn has one potential chance left for survival. And this is only if Microsoft will continue to use the code-named Windows Server "Longhorn" R2 to refer to the 64-bit exclusive next release of Windows Server 2008.

"The idea that Blackcomb wasn't much further but it's much better kinda fell by the wayside & grew soon afterwards. Joe Belfiore decided to create a little release in the middle & named it after the bar between the mountains - Longhorn. so much for the cool names," McDonald added.