Microsoft plans to accompany the release of a future version of Windows, code-named Longhorn, with versions of Office, Exchange, and Visual Studio based on database technology under development. During a series of technical and financial presentations to reporters and analysts here this week, Microsoft execs confirmed that the Longhorn version of the Windows client and server--due several years from now--will use as its file system database technology slated for inclusion in the next version of SQL Server, code-named Yukon. The upcoming version of SQL Server will store documents, E-mail, multimedia files, and relational data in a common data store, in XML format.

Later this decade, that data store will buttress Microsoft Windows and Exchange. Instead of users dropping documents and messages into folders to organize them, then having to memorize their systems, Windows Longhorn could tag documents or digital photos with XML metadata that lets users quickly reorganize files in different groups according to content. Future versions of Office, MSN, Visual Studio, and Exchange shipping around the same time as Longhorn will pass these benefits on to customers, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates says.