(2 votes, average: 8 out of 10)
Loading ...How Microsoft’s products are born and how they die: Part 3
The final article of a three-part series by David DeJean of Computerworld
In the first two instalments of this series, we told you about the history of Microsoft Corp.’s product lifecycle guidelines, how they support service packs, and how Microsoft handled Windows XP much differently.
Despite hint’s from CEO Steve Ballmer the company could extend support, we’re in for an interesting few weeks between now and June 30, when the company is scheduled to stop selling XP through its retail and OEM channels.
XP won’t suddenly disappear on June 30. It will take some time for PCs loaded with XP to move from factories to warehouses to sellers to buyers. Shrink-wrapped FPP versions of the various editions of XP will also remain on sale until supplies are exhausted. And even after June 30, there will still be two ways to obtain XP until January 31, 2009.
The easiest way will be to buy a new PC with XP installed from a “white box” system builder. It will, of course, be an OEM version of the operating system (white box builders tend to use the same OEM versions as the larger vendors), which is tied to the PC it’s installed on and can’t be transferred to another computer.
Or you can buy a new PC with an OEM version of Vista Business or Vista Ultimate installed and downgrade to XP.
There are enough pain points in this process that you won’t want to undertake it lightly. While you may have the right to downgrade, the maker of your PC isn’t obliged to supply an XP install disk. If it’s important to you, check before you buy. And while you can reinstall Vista later on, you have to do it from the installation files or media you got with the machine, so don’t wipe those out by accident.
You won’t be able to activate your new XP install with its previously used product key across the Internet, either. A query to Microsoft on this last point produced the following clarification:
Does that make everything clearer?
Support goes on
Although the sales lifecycle starts to wind down on June 30, you can keep on using XP for as long as you want to. You might want to run XP until the next version of Windows, currently called “Windows 7,” comes out — it’s expected in 2010. Or you might want to give some other OS a little more time to mature — perhaps you think that Ubuntu Linux is just a couple of versions away from real usability.
In both these cases, time is on your side. There won’t be any changes in XP support until April 14, 2009, when Windows XP Service Pack 2 moves from “mainstream” support to “extended” support. Extended support’s security fixes should certainly keep you going safely until April 8, 2014, or until Windows 7 actually does ship, whichever comes first.
The problem is, there’s support and then there’s support. The last time Microsoft ended mainstream support for a version of Windows was in June 2005, when it stopped supporting Windows 2000. By the end of 2006, major software vendors had also ended their support for the OS. New products didn’t support Windows 2000, and upgrades of existing Win2K products to new versions weren’t available.
This lack of upgrades to run on defunct operating systems is a natural result of market forces. Application software makers, just like Microsoft, want to minimize their support costs by supporting their products on as few operating-system versions as economically possible, so when an OS version’s percentage of the installed base falls below its potential to contribute to the bottom line, the vendor will cut its support — and deflect complaints by pointing at Microsoft.
XP is certainly much more widely used than Win2K, and it will probably be supported by application vendors for a lot longer as a result. But if you really want to stay with XP, you should be prepared to stay with your current applications as well. There may not be any upgrades.
Finally, there is one more factor that might stretch out the life of XP a bit. Benjamin Gray, an analyst at Forrester Research, predicted last fall that Service Pack 3 for XP, which will ship later this year, may play a part. Big corporate customers are still looking forward to XP SP3, and Gray said he wouldn’t be surprised to see Microsoft extend mainstream support for this updated version of the OS past April 2009 in response to pressure from the enterprise market.
If you’re clinging to XP because you’re waiting for that stability and compatibility, whether in Vista or in the next version of Windows, or just because you’re entirely happy with XP and see no reason to change, then the product lifecycle guidelines are your friend. The combination of mainstream and extended support will give you several years of protection.
And even if you find in a couple of years that you can’t get an XP version of some upgraded application, extended support means that your XP machine still has some life expectancy — you won’t have to junk it just because it’s become a malware magnet.
But if you’re holding onto XP because you’re just purely mad at Microsoft, or your PC won’t run Vista anyway, then you’re only buying time. Sooner or later, it’s inevitable. Whether you love Vista or hate it, merely tolerate XP or won’t give it up until it’s pried from your cold, dead fingers, it will be gone. The product lifecycle guidelines say so.
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Windows XP SP3 suffers delay
From IDG News Service:
Microsoft has delayed the release of a third service pack for Windows XP, blaming a “compatibility issue” between the software and a retail-chain-management application.
Microsoft had said last week that it completed development on Windows XP, Service Pack 3 (SP3), and that it would be available via its software-update services on Tuesday. However, incompatibilities discovered in the past several days between an application called Microsoft Dynamics RMS and both Windows XP SP3 and Windows Vista Service Pack 1 will force the company to hold off on releasing the software. Dynamics RMS is a retail-chain-management software for small and mid-sized businesses.
Microsoft said it is putting filtering in place to prevent its Windows Update service from offering both service packs to systems running Microsoft Dynamics RMS. Once that filtering is in place, Microsoft will release Windows XP SP3 to Windows Update and Download Center for users not running the application causing the problem. The company on Tuesday did not say how long putting in filters would take.
Microsoft is recommending that Microsoft Dynamics RMS customers not install Windows XP SP3 or Windows Vista SP1. For more information, those customers should contact Microsoft Customer Support Services, the company said.
A fix to the Dynamics RMS problem is being tested and “will be available as soon as that process is complete,” Microsoft said. The company did not provide a time frame for completion of the testing and recommends customers visit its TechNet Forums for more information regarding Windows XP SP3.
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(2 votes, average: 9 out of 10) Loading ...Dell may come to rescue of Windows XP customers
From InfoWorld:
InfoWorld has confirmed that Dell will sell and support Windows XP to consumers beyond the June 30 Microsoft sales cutoff date that Microsoft reaffirmed today, after earlier comments from CEO Steve Ballmer seemingly indicated it might reconsider that decision.
Dell will take advantage of a licensing option in Vista Business and Vista Ultimate that lets PC makers provide XP under the Vista license, which Microsoft calls a “downgrade” license. (Enterprises with site licenses have these same rights with any version of Vista.) In essence, the user is buying a Vista license that it can apply to XP, and Microsoft can still claim a Vista sale.
Dell will preinstall XP Professional as a “downgrade” on a variety of desktop PCs and laptops, a spokesperson said, saving users the hassle of doing it themselves. The computers available with the XP option will include the Windows Vista installation DVD in the box so users can later install Vista over XP under the same license if they wish.
The “downgrade” program is available as an option on some Dell Latitude, OptiPlex, and Dell Precision systems at no charge. It’s also available as an option on some Vostro and Dell XPS gaming systems for a small fee; these systems are targeted mainly at small business users and consumers.
A Dell spokesperson said this program will be supported as long as Microsoft supports the “downgrade” program.
Although Dell will ship a resource DVD that includes XP and Vista drivers for included peripherals, it’s unclear whether Dell will ship XP drivers for all the available options. For example, a Vostro 200 desktop today available with a choice of Windows XP and Windows Vista has an option for a wireless card that will not work under XP.
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Microsoft flack douses Ballmer’s suggestion of XP reprieve
Well, that certainly didn’t take long. An update from our friends at IDG News Service:
Comments by Steve Ballmer at a press conference in Europe on Thursday led to speculation that Microsoft is reconsidering its June 30 deadline to stop selling most new Windows XP licenses. A spokeswoman from Microsoft’s public relations firm said there is no change to the current plan, however.
“Our plan for Windows XP availability is unchanged. We’re confident that’s the right thing to do based on the feedback we’ve heard from our customers and partners,” the spokeswoman said, reading from a Microsoft statement.
Ballmer’s comments at a press conference at Louvain-la-Neuve University in Belgium led to a flurry of reports that Microsoft may be considering an extension of its deadline.
“If customer feedback varies we can always wake up smarter, but right now we have a plan for end-of-life for new XP shipments,” Ballmer said, according to Reuters. Microsoft did not have a transcript of the event, but the spokeswoman from Waggener Edstrom said the report seemed accurate.
The spokeswoman said Microsoft is aware that some customers are pushing for an extension to the deadline — more than 160,000 people have signed a “Save XP” petition launched by Infoworld magazine, for example. But the company has also done its own research among partners and customers and feels that “the dates are right,” she said.
“We feel we’ve made the right accommodations for customers in certain segments who may need more time to transition to Windows Vista,” she said. “But as Steve noted, we maintain a constant stance of listening to our customers and our partners. That’s what is guiding our plan, and will continue to guide us going forward.”
The “accommodations” refer to several exceptions that Microsoft has made to the June 30 deadline. For example, companies that make volume purchases of Vista Business or Vista Ultimate can ask their vendor to “downgrade” their license to Windows XP. Microsoft has also made exceptions for the emerging class of small, ultra-low-cost PCs, and it will continue to provide Windows XP Starter Edition for PCs sold in emerging markets.
Retailers and PC vendors can also continue to sell any backlog of Windows XP licenses that they bought before the June 30 deadline. Beyond those exceptions, most new Windows licenses purchased after June 30 will be for Windows Vista.
The owner of a PC support center near Boston questioned which users Microsoft had been gathering feedback from.
“I’d love to know exactly what, and how many ‘customers’ Microsoft claims to be getting this feedback from,” David Bookbinder, owner of Total PC Support, said via e-mail. “My guess, and it’s an educated one, is that it’s more likely stockholder feedback.”
Total PC Support provides service to home and small-business users in eastern Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire.
“I service over 600 clients and have yet to find ONE speak highly of Vista, or wish XP to end,” he wrote. “And that goes from the biggest novice on up.”
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Ballmer offers hope for a Windows XP reprieve
This just in from our counterparts at Computerworld U.S.:
Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer said there is a chance the company could reconsider its decision to begin retiring Windows XP on June 30, according to news reports from Belgium.
Both the Associated Press and Reuters said Ballmer hinted that Windows XP’s availability could be extended if customers lobby to keep the six-year-old operating system. So far, Ballmer said, they have not.
“XP will hit an end-of-life. We have announced one. If customer feedback varies, we can always wake up smarter, but right now we have a plan for end-of-life for new XP shipments,” Reuters quoted Ballmer as saying.
Previously, Microsoft has set June 30 as the end of XP for computer manufacturers, and the date when it would pull the OS from its retail list. Small shops and individuals pegged as “system builders,” however, will be able to pre-install XP on assembled machines for another year.
Yesterday, while answering a number of questions related to Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3), which was released Monday, a company spokeswoman said that there had been no change in the June 30 date. Microsoft did not immediately respond today to a follow-up request for comment.
“In the business environment, we still have customers who are buying PCs with XP,” Ballmer acknowledged today.
In fact, according to Forrester Research, use of Windows XP in business barely budged last year, even though Windows Vista debuted in January.
Surveys of more than 50,000 corporate computer users, said Forrester, showed that 89.5% of all Windows users were running XP at the beginning of 2007, and 89.8% were using it at year’s end. Vista’s share, meanwhile, reached 6.3% by the end of 2007, a gain that was almost exactly mirrored by a drop in Windows 2000 use.
Today was the second time in as many weeks that Ballmer hinted at a possible reprieve for XP.
Last week, during a talk at Microsoft’s annual MVP — Most Valuable Professional — conference, he said: “We have a lot of customers that are choosing to stay with Windows XP, and as long as those are both important options, we will be sensitive, and we will listen, and we will hear that.”
Like today, however, Ballmer stopped far short last week last week of actually changing XP’s drop-dead date for OEMs and retail. “I know we’re going to continue to get feedback from people on how long XP should be available,” he said then. “We’ve got some opinions on that. We’ve expressed our views.”
Ballmer was in Belgium Thursday to help launch a new Microsoft facility in Mons, a city about 40 miles south of Brussels.
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(2 votes, average: 10 out of 10) Loading ...How Microsoft’s products are born and how they die: Part 2
The second of a three-part series by David DeJean of Computerworld
Last week, we told you about the history of Microsoft Corp.’s product lifecycle guidelines, which
apply to all Microsoft products, not just operating systems.
During the 1990s, the software vendor found it wasn’t able to bring out products fast enough to satisfy customers. Then the Internet bubble burst and PC sales slowed, and Microsoft brought in product lifecycle guidelines to reduce support liabilities.
First laid out in 2001 and revised in 2002 and 2004, the guidelines defined a three-phase lifespan and created a division between business desktop software and consumer desktop software. (In the beginning it was easier to distinguish between business products based on the NT kernel — like Windows NT and Windows 2000 — and consumer products that ran on top of DOS, like Windows 98 and ME.)
The first phase is the mainstream phase. In the prime of a product’s life, Microsoft provides both free and paid live support, support for warranty claims, and online self-help support information. Software support and maintenance is extensive and free, with downloadable fixes and updates, service packs, and freely available support for problem incidents as well as requests for design changes and new features. Business customers may pay for additional support.
In the second, extended phase, free live support and warranty support end. Free maintenance of consumer products is limited to security fixes. Self-help support information remains available online. Pay-per-incident live support remains available. Software patches and updates continue for business desktop software.
In the third phase, the end of the product’s life, online support information is removed. Patches and updates cease. The product is history.
These phases were set in a schedule with definite dates and durations. Business products would be supported for 10 years — mainstream support for five years, extended support for another five. Consumer products would get five years of mainstream support, but no extended support.
But there are two other factors in a product’s lifecycle — service packs and the availability of a new version of the product.
Service packs have a lifecycle of their own. Support for each service pack ends 24 months after the next service pack release (support for Windows XP Home SP1 support, for example, ended in 2006, two years after the release of SP2 in 2004) or at the end of the product’s support lifecycle, whichever comes first.
When it looked like mainstream support for Windows XP might run out before the next version of Windows made it to market, Microsoft amended the support lifecycle policy to promise that mainstream support would last for either five years or for two years after a successor version is released, whichever period is longer.
While the product lifecycle guidelines set very definite limits on product life spans, Microsoft has shown a willingness to move the goalposts when it gets enough pressure. When Windows XP shipped in December of 2001, it was slated to be in mainstream support until December of 2006. Microsoft’s internal problems with getting Vista out the door finally forced the company to extend the mainstream period for XP out to April of 2009, and to make some other accommodations, like eliminating the distinction between business and consumer versions, so that XP Home will have an extended support phase just like XP Pro.
The result is that next year, on April 14, 2009, Microsoft will end mainstream support for XP, and five years later, on April 8, 2014, it will stop supporting XP at all.
The other lifecycle
But even before that, XP faces a major event in an entirely different lifecycle, one that Microsoft has said very little about: the sales lifecycle.
The key dates for sales come much sooner than 2009 or 2014. In fact, in only a few weeks, on June 30, 2008, Microsoft will stop selling XP through its retail and original equipment manufacturer channels.
System builders, the “white box” retailers who build PCs to order, will be given another seven months, but on January 31, 2009, a couple of months before XP exits mainstream support, Microsoft will stop selling XP altogether (except for a version sold in some less-developed countries and a special arrangement for XP Home in China).
At least that’s the current information. It could change. It has before.
In the past, the company has generally kept the previous version of Windows on the market for two years or so past the introduction of a new version. That was apparently the plan for XP. When Vista finally shipped to enterprise customers in late 2006, the on-sale dates for XP were reset to January 2009.
But the new OS didn’t capture the popular imagination quite the way Microsoft had planned. Vista’s heavy demands for hardware, its rocky support for applications and peripherals, and its draconian security features have left consumers less than enthusiastic.
Enterprise customers have also been slower to move to Vista than to previous versions of Windows. A Microsoft reseller, CDW, reported this January the results of a poll that found that a year after its release, fewer than half of businesses were using or evaluating Vista.
Big OEMs initially switched from XP to Vista when the consumer versions of the OS shipped in January 2007. But by April, Dell, Lenovo, and HP were once again selling machines with XP installed. An April 4 post on Dell’s Web site announced the company’s intention to sell XP on certain systems “until later this summer.” Nearly a year later, the company is still selling XP systems.
In September 2007, Microsoft agreed to a six-month extension of XP’s on-sale dates, along with license provisions for Vista’s business editions that grant buyers the right to downgrade to XP.
All this leaves Microsoft in an unfamiliar position. Its major customers — the OEMs, system builders and enterprise licensees — and a vocal part of the Windows user base all appear to be reluctant users of Vista. None of this means that Microsoft is likely to grant XP another stay of execution. But it does mean we’re going to be in for an interesting few weeks leading up to June 30.
What happens after June 30?
Find out when ComputerWorld Canada publishes the final and third part of the series.
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(1 votes, average: 10 out of 10) Loading ...How Microsoft’s products are born and how they die: Part 1
In the first of a three-part series, David DeJean of Computerworld explains Microsoft Corp.’s product life cycle and how this affects Windows XP.
The approaching death of Windows XP may upset you, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise. Microsoft ’s product lifecycle guidelines have foretold the fate of XP since 2001. In fact, Microsoft has been killing off one version of a product as it is replaced with another for years now. But this time around, the approaching demise of XP is getting more attention than, say, the final passing of Windows 2000 .
Why? For a couple of reasons: XP is the most widely used operating system on the planet, and its long-delayed successor, Windows Vista , is not proving to be universally popular. The companies that make up the enterprise market for Windows are dragging their feet about upgrading, and on the consumer side there are signs of a rebellion against Vista.
Microsoft has already made changes in its timetables: Last year, the company extended the sales lifecycle — the time during which PC manufacturers and system builders could sell computers with XP installed — to June 30, 2008. It will stop selling XP altogether on January 31, 2009.
Microsoft will stop selling XP long before it stops supporting it. You may be able to run XP for as long as you want , but before too long you may not be able to buy a legitimate copy of XP to run.
Microsoft’s product lifecycle guidelines grew out of two sets of needs: Microsoft’s need to make a profit, and its customers’ (particularly enterprise customers) needs for some certainty about the products they were committing to.
The policy was an attempt at transparency, a promise that new products would be supported for a definite period and that as they aged Microsoft wouldn’t just abandon them. Instead, the company would withdraw support in a series of scheduled steps that corresponded to the pace of technological change, allowing customers time to transition to newer products.
The problem is that what sounds like a promise to some (particularly enterprise customers) can sound like a threat to others — particularly consumers. And they’re not taking it well.
This incipient consumer rebellion is a relatively new phenomenon, even in the short history of personal computers. For most of the ’90s, Microsoft couldn’t bring out new products fast enough to satisfy customers. Computing technology was exploding, and Windows exploded along with it, from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 to Windows 98 to Windows 98 Second Edition to Windows Millennium Edition. PC sales boomed and Windows users raced to upgrade to the latest version.
But that binge left Microsoft with a huge hangover. As the new decade started, it was supporting a tangle of versions and upgrades. Then the Internet bubble burst and PC sales slowed. New products like Windows ME weren’t as well received as the older ones. Microsoft needed to reduce its support liabilities and create a profit plan. The product lifecycle guidelines were the solution.
Check this blog Tuesday April 22 to find out more about the three phases in the life span of Microsoft’s products.
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(1 votes, average: 10 out of 10) Loading ...Neowin leaks XP Service Pack 3 release dates
ComputerWorld’s Gregg Keizer updates the IT industry on the status of Windows XP Service Pack 3
Microsoft Corp. will release Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) to computer makers and some IT professionals next week, and it will offer it to all users via Windows Update April 29, according to an internal schedule obtained by the Neowin.net Web site.
Although others had previously pegged SP3’s release to the last half of April, Neowin’s dates are the most specific seen so far.
For its part, Microsoft has only said SP3 will be released during the first half of 2008.
But according to Neowin, the service pack will debut April 21, when it’s shipped to computer manufacturers, offered to volume licensing customers and posted for download on TechNet and the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN), which are subscription services for IT staff and developers, respectively.
Most users, however, will first be able to obtain SP3 on April 29, when Microsoft lists it on Windows Update (WU) for download.
However, Microsoft won’t turn on the automatic download and installation of SP3 until June 10, according to Neowin.
Company administrators and users have been able to block the automatic distribution of Windows XP SP3, as well as Vista SP1, since December 2007, when Microsoft published the Windows Service Pack Blocker Tool Kit.
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(4 votes, average: 9.75 out of 10) Loading ...IT analysts don’t hold much hope for XP reprieve
Gregg Keizer of Computerworld U.S. offers a bleak report:
Microsoft Corp. may be set to extend Windows XP’s availability for low-cost laptops and a new generation of handheld devices, but it won’t give the aged operating system a general reprieve from its June 30 retail and reseller cutoff, analysts said yesterday.
“Not likely,” said Directions on Microsoft analyst Michael Cherry, citing Microsoft’s need to push Windows Vista.
“XP has had one reprieve already,” said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at JupiterResearch LLC. “And there are ways they can extend the life of the technology without extending the life of the XP brand.”
Last September, Microsoft gave Windows XP a five-month stay, saying it would continue selling the operating system to large computer makers and at retail through the end of June, rather than call it quits Jan. 31, 2008, which had been its original plan.
Yesterday, reports surfaced that said Microsoft would also relax the June 30 deadline for low-cost laptops, such as the Asus Eee and the low-priced pocket devices that plan to use Intel’s Atom processors. Those laptops and devices will lack the horsepower to run Windows Vista.
“There’s clearly a need for something like XP in the mobile or ultramobile market, where it shines relative to Vista,” Gartenberg said.
Cherry agreed that Vista has no place on low-powered hardware, but said Microsoft was in a tough spot. If Vista’s specifications preclude its use on laptops in the $200 to $300 range, as they certainly do, and Microsoft doesn’t want to cede the turf to Linux, its only choice is XP. Yet Cherry said Microsoft would put XP to bed if it could.
“Regardless of what happens, at the end of the day we’ve got XP, Vista — all five versions of it — and then Windows 7 coming along,” Cherry said. “How long can they keep maintaining three big globs of code?”
But if people are expecting Microsoft to lengthen the life span of Windows XP for all users, they’re dreaming, Cherry continued. “I think it’s likely that Microsoft will extend the deadline, but I don’t think everyone will like what it is. They won’t keep it alive for all.”
Cherry again cited the difficulty of maintaining the code base for XP at the same time it makes the case for Vista and develops Windows 7. He also dismissed the fact that last September, Microsoft promised to make Windows XP Starter Edition available in emerging markets — generally defined as countries such as China, India, Russia and the like — through June 2010. “There’s a difference between maintaining something like XP Starter and XP for anyone who wants it,” Cherry argued.
Interest in Windows XP’s longevity has been driven by several factors, including the approaching June 30 deadline and the imminent release of another service pack, but the biggest reason users seem to want XP to live is a general reluctance to upgrade to Windows Vista.
Earlier this week, Forrester Research Inc. released results of monthly surveys during 2007 that polled more than 50,000 enterprise computer users. According to the surveys, Windows XP usage remained constant throughout the year at slightly over 89% of all Windows users in businesses. Windows Vista, meanwhile, grew from nearly nothing to just over 6%, but it appeared to get its gains at the expense of Windows 2000, not the dominant Windows XP.
A Forrester researcher said the data hinted that companies might hang onto Windows XP until the next iteration, Windows 7, is available in late 2009 or early 2010, skipping Vista altogether.
Gartenberg acknowledged the pressure to push out XP’s drop-dead date came from Vista’s troubles. “In the past, you could argue that the latest and greatest from Microsoft was better. But for many people and businesses, that just doesn’t fly this time.
“It boils down to the simple question,” he continued. “If Microsoft can’t convince their customers to move to Vista, will they will be able to kill XP?”
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(1 votes, average: 8 out of 10) Loading ...Laptops may get a reprieve from Windows XP deadline
IDG News Service’s Sumner Lemon reports from Singapore:
Microsoft plans to extend the availability of Windows XP for low-cost laptops beyond June 30, with an announcement expected later this week, according to a source familiar with the situation.
June 30 is the date when Microsoft plans to stop selling most Windows XP licences. The announcement that Microsoft will extend this deadline for low-cost laptops is expected to be made in the U.S., although it appears timed to coincide with the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) being held in Shanghai on Wednesday and Thursday.
A Microsoft spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment on the expected announcement.
Intel is using IDF to herald the imminent arrival of handheld computers and low-cost laptops based on its upcoming Atom processors. Many of these devices will lack the storage capacity and memory needed to run Vista. As a result, hardware makers and industry analysts expect most to run either Windows XP or Linux. Intel has also been working closely with Linux developers to customize the open-source operating system for handheld computers it calls Mobile Internet Devices, or MIDs.
Vista is not deemed a practical option for laptops equipped with just 512M bytes of RAM and 2G bytes of storage. Even Vista Starter, the low-cost and stripped down version that Microsoft developed for emerging markets, still requires 15G bytes of free storage. Another problem is Vista’s cost, which would likely push system prices beyond the US$250 to $300 range where Intel hopes to see many of these Atom-based laptops priced.
Microsoft set the June 30 deadline as a way of pushing users towards Windows Vista, and the expected extension of Windows XP for low-cost laptops may not affect that objective.
Intel is setting strict guidelines for system builders that are designed to segment the laptop market by restricting features, such as screen size, that can be used with an Atom processor. These rules are designed to make sure that low-cost laptop sales do not cannibalize sales of mainstream laptops based on Intel’s Core 2 Duo mobile processors.
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