In my first look at WinFS Beta 1, I examine Microsoft's next-generation storage engine, likely to be renamed as Windows Storage Foundation! On August 29, 2005, Microsoft surprised analysts, developers, and other onlookers with its surprise release of WinFS Beta 1, the first publicly available version of the company's next-generation data storage engine. To understand why this was a surprise, we must step back a bit in time and examine the development of this technology which, until recently, was as pie-in-the-sky as teleportation or cold fusion.

Paul Thurrott Windows SuperSite