Microsoft bet the farm on .NET and Longhorn...

...and just cancelled the bet. I've been writing about Microsoft's hubris for quite some time, and with last week's announcement from Microsoft that Longhorn is going to be dramatically altered (i.e. its boldest features cut), Microsoft has admitted to the world that their plans for Windows were untenable.

So now it seems like they're going to be building future versions of Windows atop the Windows XP code-base, as opposed to essentially starting from scratch. This makes a lot of sense, and should have been their plan for the past three years since WinXP's release.

Longhorn was an ambitious plan that Microsoft simply couldn't pull off in a timely and marketable manner.

They've realized this, and have adjusted course.

Good for them. But what this also means is that Windows XP and its direct ancestors are going to be around for a lot longer, and Microsoft has abandoned short- and medium-term hopes of coming up with something fundamentally better.

So Microsoft bet the farm on .NET and Longhorn and then cancelled the bet. The question now is, did they do so too late? Has the growing tide of competition to Windows finally forced Microsoft to react defensively, as opposed to define the operating system marketplace according to their own wishes?

I certainly hope so. And most signs are pointing to yes.