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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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May 1st, 2008 at 11:07 am
Vista can be tweaked to look and feel like windows xp, its just with the weak economy people dont wanna invest money/time into porting their custom apps…
May 5th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Kamic;
A work around isn’t the answer.
Vista’s reputation is!!!
If it were outstanding, people would have bought it!!!
PERIOD
I don’t mean to be harsh, Kamic, but Vista’s reputation is one of the reasons why THE WEAK ECONOMY PEOPLE prefer XP.
Because there is a hardware compatibility issue: TO RUN VISTA YOU NEED A NEW OR POWERFUL PC.
That is an expensive hidden price tag for an OS!!!
Oh one more thing
Nowadays, we dont have time to experiment on behalf of the developers.
We barely have time to produce data in that fast life cycle.
We want SOLID, fast, versatile and reliable products.
For me Apple delivered something that good: OS X!!!
Compared to that hardware compatibility issue, I could run OS X (10.4) on a 1999 MacBook PRO!!!
Could a PC of 9 years of age hold and run efficiently Vista???
Kamic, I could run XP but not Vista on an old PC . Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is important.
Let’s hope the next version of Microsoft Windows will be outstanding!!!
May 5th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Vista is a blotted POS only fit for the dumpster it is the windows ME of our time if windows 7 is no better the masses will switch to another OS because they want to able to use their computers not watch them crash!