Microsoft Watch is reporting that the next verison of Windows, codenamed Longhorn, is going to require a PC that doesn’t yet exist. That’s okay, since Longhorn isn’t due until 2006, plenty of time for Mac OS X to steal market share as the Redmond monopoly struggles to catch up.
Longhorn will purportedly require “a dual-core CPU running at 4 to 6GHz; a minimum of 2 gigs of RAM; up to a terabyte of storage; a 1 Gbit, built-in, Ethernet-wired port and an 802.11g wireless link; and a graphics processor that runs three times faster than those on the market today.”
I’m sure Intel and AMD have 4 GHz CPUs waiting in the wings, but I wonder if we’ll see 6 GHz in 2006. Hard drive sizes are increasing expotentially, to be sure, and I can see a terabyte being available in the next two years, but I’m not sure if it will be available in such quantities as these specifications would assume. Gigabit Ethernet is a reality here and now, especially for Mac owners, as is the 802.11g wireless spec, so those aren’t any big surprises.
In a nutshell, I imagine you will see Microsoft having to blunt Longhorn for lower-end systems than what is currently called for. I simply don’t believe that those systems will be available, in mass quantity, by the time the OS ships.
(via MacMinute)