Unless Microsoft can develop a worthy successor to Windows XP, Microsoft’s continuing efforts to kill off XP will only hasten Microsoft’s downfall.
Windows XP is the most popular operating system on the planet, and for some reason Microsoft has decided that it is time everyone to “upgrade” to Vista. I have yet to hear someone praise Vista as being ready for a corporate environment or better than XP. Even Microsoft’s execs have complained internally about Vista’s many shortcomings. Yet, Microsoft seems bent on killing XP. Here’s Microsoft’s XP timetable from ComputerWorld:
June 30, 2008
PC manufacturers stop selling computers with XP installed.
Jan. 31, 2009
Microsoft stops selling XP altogether.
April 14, 2009
Mainstream support (free live support and warranty support) ends. Free maintenance is limited to security fixes.
April 8, 2014
All support for XP ends.
What sense does this make? None because of how bad Vista is. It will only get more people to try Apple or Linux. Is that what Microsoft really wants?
For more than a decade I have pretty much kept up with Microsoft’s operating systems. It was an easy decision to switch from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95. Windows 98 was far better than 95, so it was a non-brainer to upgrade. Windows Me was an abortion, but that was rectified with Windows XP.
But this time I’m done with Microsoft. Instead of switching to Vista, I’m trying out Linux. I’m writing this on a computer running Ubuntu. For almost all of my computing tasks Linux works great. It’s a bit rough around the edges, but for most task it works well (and there are a number of important benefits–security and ease of upgrading programs and the operating to name two).
In the end, I hope Microsoft prematurely kills XP. It will create more competition that will lead to improved operating systems. And Increased competition is always a good thing.
Who knows, maybe Microsoft will actually feel enough pressure and develop an operating system that makes upgrading a non-brainer. But at this point, I doubt it.
Jumping to conclusions, already? I don’t think Microsoft will (or could) ever commit financial suicide.
I have to agree. I’m a tech and used to own two of my own stores and managed others – and I have stuck with Microsoft for years.
If they kill XP with the shape Vista is in, stick me with a fork – I’m done!
William Cormier
Yup, soon as this install dies, like Windows installs inevitably do, it’s Ubuntu for me. Fuck off, fuck you, die in a corner Microsoft, inept shit peddling greedy bastards.
Oh, please. Support until 2014? How is that financial suicide? Giving people six years more of support of an old, yes old, operation system while giving them time to fix the current system (which will probably take them at least 3-4 years) seems fine. People don’t want to change operating systems in general, geeks do. Corporations have an investment and an internal IT department that is well versed in XP. It will be around for a while.
If a browser can be updated and run fine most people don’t really give a crap.
MSFT can still roll out plenty of optimizations for Vista, having set new but slow and sloppy implementations of their frameworks. Smart decision moving to Ubuntu GNU/Linux though.
Well, actually I see your point, and I can certainly tell I myself won’t ‘upgrade’ to Vista unless my development tools stop working on XP. But…
Assuming that MS will loose market share is stupid. Yeah, people will try Linux, some might even move to Mac, but still there’s *no way* Vista is going to fail, considering it’s getting installed with most every other notebook/PC right at the manufacturer.
Yes, MS will loose market share, but how significant will it be? Don’t take me wrong, I hate Vista as much as anyone out there, but there are millions of people out there that don’t know any better…
i got a mac book pro in february and havent looked back. 10.5.x is a dream to work with and the os i have been looking for my whole life. of coarse i have parallels to run xp and have office installed but windowz will NEVER be my main os again. EVER! Ubuntu is great too, its free and i dont mean necessarily in price. it is free of annoying activations, genuine advantage bs, security risks, overbearing drm, etc, etc, etc. if you want to truly enjoy your machine again and actually be able to use it transparently, get ready to say goodbye to windowz.
Ubuntu is great. Someone needs to make a good office suite for it though, and make it compatible with MS Office. If Microsoft did one thing right, it was their office suite, I just wish something like that was available on Linux.
Anyway, if you wanted to mess around and see what you can do with Ubuntu (and you have a decent video card/RAM) download compiz-fusion, it’s pretty freaking sweet.
We need to start convincing all these big companies to make software for linux too, it’s already starting, but it needs to continue. The linux kernel is much more versitle anyway, it should really be the standard one.
I’ve finally had it with MSFT. It is amazing how far a great concept can be perverted. The whole consistent UI really drove Office’s success, but then the bloat set in…and spread. I’ve recently converted to http://linuxmint.com/ and have not regretted a moment of it. Easy install, easy config, easy learning curve. Good stuff.
Support until 2014? Sounds good, actually.
I mainly use Linux, but I do use XP for working on. I opted to go for XP over Vista on a new computer because I didn’t really have any need for the eye-candy, but I wasn’t expecting updates to last beyond the end of ’08. I think another six years is very generous of Microsoft – by that time Vista will be stable and polished and we’ll wonder how we ever managed with mere gigabytes of RAM.
xian, get a clue. Microsoft will stop shipping XP this summer. You know what that means? That means that all those IT departments that know and love–at least compared to the clusterfuck that is Vista–XP will no longer be able to buy XP. No machines with XP preinstalled. No licenses so that they can install it themselves on Vista machines. In other words, the folks in IT will be up shit creek without a paddle. Support is only half the equation, and it means nothing if you can’t buy the “supported” product.
Microsoft will die, Walmart will die, every big company gets complacent and looses to new and better ideas.
I tried to bring software and hardware that will improve the productivity of the world by 6%, and couldn’t talk to anyone but secretarys. I understand why giants fall so easily. If everyone quit shopping at walmart for 7 days, they would be broke.
Albert