Longhorn is shaping up to be LooooooongTimeComingHorn. Mary Jo Foley in Microsoft Watch reports that 2006 is now the shipping date. And when you remember that Windows XP came out in 2001, a little bit of simple math gives us 5 years between Windows versions. Once upon a time, that same stretch of years brought us Windows 95, 98, 98SE, ME and Windows 2000. A rapid fire release schedule like that shows a development teams that thinks what they’ve got out there isn’t good enough, and wants to get the next best thing released as soon as possible. That train stopped at XP, though, and aside from service packs there hasn’t been any stirring in the last two years. Maybe this is just further proof that MS feels XP is the conclusion of this particular Windows lineage, and so they’re working on making Longhorn a truly next generation product. Just like Windows 95 was a giant step away from 3.11. Or it could mean that the Windows team is disorganized and directionless, and Longhorn is a huge sinkhole that will drag the whole company down.

Your call.