WinFS is Beta 1

Well, WinFS is in Beta - who would have thought it? This is one of the original three pillars of Longhorn that was previously dropped. Great to see that it wasn't dropped completely and is following closely behind the other two pillars, WPF and WCF. It will not make it into the initial Windows Vista release unfortunately :-( It will be compatible with WinXP though :-)

I have to commend Microsoft for making all of these technologies backwardly compatible with Windows XP, it is a very strategic decision, creating an infinetly larger market than Vista could attain on release. Means developers can target these features knowing that a greater percentage of users out there will be able to run the applications - very nice!