Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 24th Apr 2008 22:20 UTC
Right now, the net is abuzz about remarks Steve Ballmer made at a Belgium news conference today. The buzz comes from a Reuters story which quotes Ballmer as saying that Windows XP's life cycle might be extended if customers demand it. Contrary to what all those reports online might indicate, there really is no change in policy here.
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Member since:2006-06-03
Running windows XP on 4Mb of ram must be quite a challenge.
This issue is not, IMO, about sales figures. It's about reputation and PR. If Microsoft backtrack too much on keeping Windows XP alive, then it will be seen as an admission that Vista failed. Failed products damage a company's reputation and as people look to upgrade [wether they need to or not], alternative OSs will be adopted.
Member since:2005-07-12
>> Megs
Oops, Yeah, I've been at this so long I STILL haven't made that adjustment. (lord help me when tb becomes more commonplace)
Could be worse, I could have said K... or even bytes. My first machine only had a quarter-k of static RAM, and that was on eight chips of 16 bits each.
Member since:2005-06-29
It's about reputation and PR. If Microsoft backtrack too much on keeping Windows XP alive, then it will be seen as an admission that Vista failed.
I didn't mention Server 2003 just as an amusing note. I see an opportunity here for Microsoft to silently promote Server 2003 to people who demand Windows XP. This would avoid the loss of face for Microsoft.
Just yesterday I made the switch from XP to 2003. I used to run 2003, then switched to XP (I believe I lost my 2003 disc/case with the license attached), but somehow, I never felt at home in XP. So, I downloaded the trial of Server 2003, which works for 180 days, and now I feel all happy again. It's slightly faster than XP too.
So, 179 days left to get my hands on a cheap 2003 license
.
Member since:2005-08-07
stestagg said....
If Microsoft backtrack too much on keeping Windows XP alive, then it will be seen as an admission that Vista failed.
I've got some bad news for you, Vista has failed. I'm not saying this because I'm someone who has 'dedicated their live to be against Microsoft' I'm saying it because it's true. Look at the market's reaction to Vista, and you'll realize its been incredibly hostile to it.
I have never had so many End-Users come up to me and empathetically tell me they do not want Vista on their new computer, isn't there some way they can still get Windows XP? (I show them how to order from the business side of Dell's website and they're happy...or I just point them towards TigerDirect..)
With Windows 2000 the benefits of jumping to Windows XP was clear--cleartype to be exact!
The transition from Win9x to WinXP was also clear, moving to an NT based kernel allowed more RAM to be used and for application crashes to occur without taking down the whole system with it...there were real benefits to the move.
That is not the case with Vista. Every Vista machine I've seen and used has either felt dog slow, or a veritable super computer that just managed to use all that computing power to stay where Windows XP already is...
---bornagainpenguin
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Member since:
2005-07-12
From a marketing standpoint continuing to sell XP would NOT hurt they're business if they priced it the same as the equivalent Vista's... Then it would be win/win and the USER could speak with their wallets. "Oh it would hurt our sales of Vista" should mean **** to them and their stockholders since they could still say "Yeah, but we're still selling XP like hotcakes" - if anything I'd say this constantly pushing the date forward is just a ploy to get wholesalers and even private users to stock up on copies of it ahead of time for quick cash in their pockets. "Order now while supplies last!"
But with so many vendors NOT having XP as an option on all configurations, shelving it prematurely all they are doing is driving the more savvy users away, likely increasing piracy (since sorry, but *nix on the desktop is still a pipedream and OSX is a tinkertoy) - Given a choice between legal XP and Pirate, I choose legal. Given a choice between Pirate XP and Legal Vista... That's a grey area for me once the channel of XP dries up.
Not that WGA hasn't already INCREASED piracy - I was running a pirated/hacked wga nuetered copy of XP with my LEGAL key, just so I didn't have the headaches of calling them on the phone about my copy being 'deactivated' three times a week while I'm swapping out CPU's and video cards for benchmark testing or upgrades. (I change hardware a LOT)... It's WHY I've switched to a LEGAL copy of XP x64 since there is NO WGA in XP x64!!! It's just a bonus that I get use of my full 4 megs of RAM instead of the 2.5 or so XP let me use even WITH the /3gig switch. (since I've got a 640 meg Ge8800GTS, a 256 meg 8400GS and 256 megs hardware mapped from my EMU Morpheus sucking down the top gig of address space)
Also why I don't trust them as far as I can throw them with this whole 'subscription' rubbish. It's a pain in the ass with Apple, It caused 'linspire' to fall flat on it's face, so naturally they have to try it to combining it with their anti-piracy methods that are more likely to make saavy users use pirated copies than legit ones. BRILLIANT.