Miguel de Icaza writes about his impression of WinFS. It seems some people may be assuming that it is the technology behind WinFS that is all that makes it what it is. Many people have pointed out that other products have, or will soon have, similar features.
However, WinFS's schemas play an even larger part in making WinFS what it is. The idea that there will be a common schema for “Person“ and “Document“ and “Album“ that can be shared, and extended, by thousands of Windows applications is incredibly powerful. Larry O'Brien gets it. And yes , this does hark back to what made Hailstorm interesting.