Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 28th Sep 2007 21:48 UTC
"Responding to feedback from customers and third parties, Microsoft has extended the availability of Windows XP to both original equipment manufacturers and retail channels through to June 30, 2008. Originally slated to be pulled from retail shelves and OEMs on January 30, 2008 - only a year after Windows Vista's debut - customers requested more time to prepare for the upgrade to Vista."
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Member since:
2005-07-06
"Who wants to bet that MS will extend XP support even after June 30, 2008?"
So long as XP is profitable, that's a bet no one will wager against. The problem then becomes supportability though...since they are extending the front end (sales) they'll also have to extend the back end (support), which if you're MS is many millions of dollars lost by having engineers who are still trained on supporting XP.
I'm sure they've had an entire fleet of accountants crunch the numbers, and my bet would be that they'll barely break even by pushing both the frontend and backend out 6 more months...however they also have to keep their big customers happy knowing that eventually they'll recoup those costs in Vista licenses.
The point is that I'm sure this wasn't some sudden decision. It probably went all the way up to Ballmer.