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Longhorn doesn't owe anything to Mac OS X. The display engine is not a unique concept (we've been asking for this for several decades), and Spotlight is no comparison to WinFS. The built-in search engine in Longhorn will also trump Google's ability to search for files on the computer. Google's only advantage right now is searching the web, but now that they've recently filed a new patent which details a lot of their ranking formula I expect the quality of their searches to decrease rapidly for a long time (search engine optimizers love search engine patents,) so they might be equals as far as web searches go. I love Google as it is today, but realistically they will be declining in quality for a while.
Why wouldn't the new graphics interface be successful? Not only is it drop-dead gorgeous aesthetically, but also technologically because it reduces the amount of work the CPU has to do (current Windows use the CPU to draw to the screen, those CPU resources can be dedicated to something more important). Also due to the offloading to the video card, multitasking will be massively enhanced. Flickering, partial screen redrawing, slow multi-tasking, etc. are things of the past. Not to mention that Avalon requires very little from developers (if nothing) to support programs. There's absolutely no reason why Avalon won't take off.
RSS/SLE is questionable. I do not have any opinions or guesses as to whether or not it will be successful. Microsoft has over 60,000 employees and the RSS team makes a *very* small percentage of them, so it if doesn't take off then no harm was done. I personally don't care for SLE, it doesn't provide anything new. However, I do think that more web sites will open the door to feed aggregators because of this.
Why don't you think that people will use the integrated security features? Protected Administrator and Least-privilege User Access will improve security by leaps and bounds and will require users to manually circumvent it (for what reason? I couldn't possibly fathom a scenario beyond people trying to bash Microsoft and spread FUD.) Because of least-privilege user access, programs will be required to use the Application Data directories and those are encrypted for enhanced privacy on multi-user systems. Not to mention that the encryption could prevent credit card numbers and stuff from being accessible to malicious people who buy old systems and try recovering files. Maintenance is also reduced because of the least-privilege user access system because there are less serious problems and less garbage spread through the filesystem and registry. The firewall has been fitted with proactive protection so it can learn of internet-based vulnerabilities from Windows Update and prevent anything similar to MSBlaster from ever causing the user problems and will disable the proactive protection once a patch has been installed. You'd have to go out of your way to hurt security on Longhorn!
And Internet Explorer doesn't even understand the concept of RSS? Get your facts straight buddy. Internet Explorer 7 has the ability to subscribe to RSS feeds.
Longhorn's stability will go beyond what we currently experience, and even XP is extremely stable. In fact, I have only had one blue screen of death on XP and that was because a memory stick had gone bad (thus, not XP's fault.) Windows Server 2003 had undergone a completely different development model that dramatically increased stability and increased security over previous versions. Longhorn is built off of the Windows Server 2003 code base and is using the same development model. Longhorn will be extremely stable and secure.
Longhorn's requirements aren't that bad either. 512mb of RAM is the *recommended* amount, not the required amount. Longhorn is much more scalable than previous versions of Windows, it will probably be able to run with just 128mb of RAM because all of the extras can be disabled and it will be able to use the 2000-style themes like previous versions of Windows. 256mb of RAM will likely be the requirement, but as always you can run well under that value (I have XP Pro SP2 running with 96mb of PC-133 RAM and it runs acceptably, and that's below XP's requirements.) Even if the recommended amount was 1 GB, that's only $50 (including shipping) from Kingston. If you can't afford 1 GB of RAM, you probably shouldn't even be interested in advancing computer technology anyway.
As for Microsoft ignoring online activities regarding communication and gaming, that is FUD if I have ever seen it. Internet Explorer's rendering engine is available to all programmers on Windows, they integrated a decent firewall, web application controls, enabled HTML applications, online-enabled PC games, Xbox live, Xbox 360 live, MSN Games, Windows messenger, MSN Messenger, administrative alerts, Hotmail, Outlook, Outlook Express, suing spammers, SQL Server, etc. What in the world could they possibly be ignoring regarding online activities? I cannot think of a single instance where that statement holds even a bit of credibility.
The only component that has been dropped from Longhorn, as far as I'm aware, is the desktop side bar. Thank goodness, it was a horrible idea anyways (it accomplished the same things as small notification icons that hide themselves.) Monad, the powerful command system, will make a very small appearance in Longhorn and development will continue for many years after. WinFS will not be included by default but development is still continuing and will be made available for Longhorn. I can't think of anything else that was supposedly dropped.
And if you're expecting Beta 1 to even come close to reflecting the capabilities of Longhorn then you will be sadly disappointed. Like all other versions of Windows, it will be nowhere near its capabilities until Beta 2. Besides, betas are testing software, NOT preview software.
Please quit spreading FUD. You were playing Russian Roulette when you started writing this editorial without doing a single bit of research.
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