In yesterday's WinInfo Daily UPDATE article titled "Next-Gen Windows Rumors Heat Up," I discussed a report from "Microsoft Windows XP--The Official Magazine" that described Windows XP Service Pack (SP1) and a purported follow-up release called XP Second Edition (SE). This publication is the second to publish information about an XP SE release since I speculated that such a product was possible back in January. However, Microsoft says XP SE isn't on the schedule. "There are no plans for Windows XP Second Edition," a Microsoft representative told me yesterday.
Microsoft will release XP SP1 this fall, and then begin the beta program for the next Windows version (code-named Longhorn). But Longhorn isn't set to ship until sometime in 2004, leaving an empty release slot in late 2003. The fact that Microsoft has shipped a new consumer Windows product every year since 1995 has led to speculation about XP SE.
