Longhorn To Ship One Year After Tiger; Microsoft Dismisses iPod Halo Effect

M icrosoft plans to ship Longhorn, its next major revision of Windows, during the second quarter of next year, making it one year younger than Appleis Tiger.

In an article for ZDNet UK, Cynthia Crossley, head of Windows client at Microsoft UK, acknowledged that Longhorn would probably offer many similar features to Tiger, but said that they were not necessarily deliberate.

"We do a load of research into what people want and funnily enough so does Apple ? itis not hard to work it out... Will I be surprised if there are similarities? No," Ms. Crossley said.

Ms. Crossley also added that Microsoft is never happy about losing market share, but that it hasnit noticed a dip as a result of any iPod "halo" effect driving PC users to Macs.

"We worry less about ilosing sharei and more about what else we can get into... we want to do it all," she added.