Longhorn Server Beta 3, released just last week, exemplifies the "slow and steady" mantra adopted by the Windows Server folks at Microsoft. It follows a Beta 2 release in May 2006, just about a year ago, and a July 2005 Beta 1 release which was, yep, was just about a year before that. Microsoft still expects to ship the final version of Longhorn Server in late 2007. By that time, the product will have been in active development for over three years. But don't think that these guys have been sitting still. After releasing Windows Server 2003 (see my review) in April 2003, Microsoft shipped a slew of add-on Feature Packs followed by an interim release, Windows Server 2003 R2 (see my review), in December 2005. And looking back on my bit about schedules, these releases do indeed meet Microsoft's goal of shipping new Server versions every other year. And every other one of these releases--Windows Server 2003, Longhorn Server--are major product updates, whereas the interim releases--Windows Server 2003 R2 and a 2009-era product currently codenamed