Why Microsoft Won’t Extend Windows XP’s Lifespan
Windows Vista haters got a ray of hope recently when Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said the company was willing to consider extending Windows XP’s lifespan. However, while Ballmer tells the Associated Press, “if customer feedback varies, we can always wake up smarter,” don’t count on Microsoft keeping XP around to satisfy a handful of disgruntled users.
As it stands Microsoft plans to stop selling XP on June 30 (and that means both retail and OEM copies to computer makers). Of course some PC makers, like Dell, have already said they will continue to offer XP even after the end-of-life deadline passes.
But if you look carefully at Dell’s plan you’ll see why Microsoft is unlikely to find that customers are clamoring for XP. Microsoft offers what it calls “downgrade rights” which allow anyone purchasing a Windows Vista Business or Ultimate license to downgrade to Windows XP Professional.
The downgrade option comes in the form of an XP image CD, which is somewhat different than an actual install CD. Dell is offering to do a factory install of XP from the image CD, which is a nice touch, but you’re still buying the rights to Vista and then downgrading.
Thus, when Microsoft shows its sales reports, it looks like you bought a copy of Vista. Even if Dell reports the number of downgrading customers, all Microsoft has to do is point to the sales records to show that Vista is the customer favorite.
What’s not quite clear is how Microsoft plans to keep XP around for the low power devices that can’t handle Vista — like say Asus’ Eee PC V2 which will ship in a new XP configuration starting mid-May. Given that the Eee PC and other small, underpowered (from a Vista point of view) laptops have proved quite the hit with consumers, it seems likely that Microsoft won’t turn its back on those machines.
But I don’t expect Microsoft to ever produce numbers that reflect a truly widespread dissatisfaction with Vista and a clamoring for XP (and I’m not entirely convinced that that’s actually the case). Of course that hasn’t stopped XP fans from starting an online petition calling for an extension to XP’s lifespan. The petition is currently some 160,000 signatures strong, but Microsoft has already responded saying “we’re aware of it, but are listening first and foremost to feedback we hear from partners and customers about what makes sense based on their needs.”
In other words, don’t count on it.
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