Windows XP SP3 to come before Longhorn

Antivirus company F-Secure always manages to stay in news. Generally, it is for their findings in the mobile virus field. However, this time they might have managed to release the information that would interest a lot of people. In a post on their Blog, they have quoted Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer saying that the Service Pack 3 of the Windows XP Operating System just might ship ahead of the highly anticipated Windows Longhorn release.

The event was the launch of the National Data Security Day in Sweden. The country joined Ireland, Denmark, Finland, and some other European countries in hosting a national day focusing on educating users about computer security. The launch took place in downtown Stockholm and was attended by Steve Ballmer (CEO of Microsoft), Ulrica Messing (Swedish Minister for Communications), Per Hellqvist (Symantec), and some people from F-Secure.

Steve Ballmer also notified that the upcoming update to the Internet Explorer in version 7 would include anti-Phishing technology built in. After Bill Gates slipup on the launch date of Microsoft Xbox 2, this is the second incident of Microsoft releasing information in the media in the most unusual form.

Is it preplanned? That is a tough guess to make.