Pardon my smirking, but I’m having a hard time keeping a straight face after reading this ComputerWorld article that claims the fact that Longhorn has been demoted to - in the words of some Microsoft cheerleader “analyst” - “just … the next Windows release” is going to be “some users’ gain”.

Color me cynical, but what makes me doubt that Apple would ever get this sort of treatment if they dropped every single significant feature in an announced major OS increment? Hell, they became a laughing stock when they choked on Copeland after the abortive Pink attempt. They continued to be the butt of the computer industry’s jokes only until they showed that they could build upon NeXT’s work in making a solid, user-friendly *NIX OS.