Executive Summary (This is a document excerpt)

Avalon, which, together with Indigo and WinFS, is one of the three pillars of Longhorn, is poised to make a dramatic leap forward in the richness of the Windows user experience. WinFS will no longer be included in the initial version of Longhorn — the next major release of Windows — and Avalon and Indigo will now take on added importance as the main new features that are expected to justify the wait for Longhorn and the investments that customers have made in Microsoft Software Assurance license agreements. Yet while most of the public focus on Avalon has been on its look and feel, the most important innovation that it brings is actually to the underlying programming model. It will provide greater productivity and flexibility through an XML-based definition of user interfaces, coupled with rationalized infrastructure that will eliminate the need to ever drop into obscure Win32 APIs to program advanced user-interface behavior. This will better equip Microsoft to compete for developer hearts and minds in the battle to maintain desktop dominance.

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