Another Longhorn feature talked about was the enhancements to WinFS and Explorer (was called “Windows Explorer”, but I think it may be called “Document Explorer” now). WinFS was originally supposed to be a database powered file system, providing rich metadata and search capabilities. That idea has long since been scratched off the Longhorn road map, but they are still working on an extensive document metadata index. As it turns out, this should be very similar to Spotlight. Longhorn will also have “virtual directories”, akin to “smart folders” in Tiger. Blow for blow, it seems Microsoft and Apple have very similar plans for changing [for the better] how people will interact with their files. I say this not accuse one company of copying the other; on the contrary, I see this paridigm as a rather natural progression based on current trends in the search industry. What really gets me though, is the timeline — Tiger debuts in two days, while the most recently announced debut goal for Longhorn is “Holiday 2006” (given Microsoft’s track record, this can be read as “mid to late 2007 at the earliest”). We’re talking about a 2 year difference here… that is several lifetimes in this industry; I can’t possibly imagine what Apple will be rolling out two years from now.