Longhorn Demo

Scoble points out to a Longhorn Demo that takes you through a sample Real Estate Application using Avalon (the vector based renderer) Indigo (reliable Messaging) and a host of other web services which form the basis of the Service Oriented Architecture behind longhorn. All this is quite exciting in terms of technology, but it is introducing the same kind of challenges that Flash had during its early days with respect to consistent user interfaces. The zoomable map using a magnifying glass that enlarges the area underneath it, reminded me of so much of the early Flash days, when such effects were considred cool. Avalon might go though a similar phase where developers will be so much in awe of what is possible that they might go ahead a design interfaces without actually thinking whether the interfaces are actually usable. By the way, couldn't the Linux/J2EE group use a combination of Flash and Webservices (read Central) to achieve what Longhorn is aiming to do without having to re-write anything?