Thought Patterns

What a choice, eh?

This June, Microsoft will discontinue the XP operating system (OS). Silly of them, yes?

Take, for instance, Galen Gruman. A longtime technology journalist, Gruman is more accustomed to writing about trends than starting them.

But after talking to Windows users for months, he realized his distaste for Vista and strong attachment to XP were widespread.

"It sort of hit us that, wait a minute, XP will be gone as of June 30. What are we going to do?" he said. "If no one does something, it's going to be gone."

So Gruman started a Save XP Web petition, gathering since January more than 100,000 signatures and thousands of comments, mostly from die-hard XP users who want Microsoft to keep selling it until the next version of Windows is released, currently targeted for 2010.

On the petition site's comments section, some users proclaimed they will downgrade from Vista to XP - an option available in the past to businesses, but now open for the first time to consumers who buy Vista Ultimate or Business editions - if they need to buy a new computer after XP goes off the market.

Others used the comments section to rail against the very idea that Microsoft has the power to enforce the phase-out from a stable, decent product to one that many consider worse, while profiting from the move. Many threatened to leave Windows for Apple or Linux machines.

(…)

Al Gillen, an IDC analyst, estimated that at the end of 2008 nearly 60 percent of consumer PCs and almost 70 percent of business PCs worldwide will still run XP. Microsoft plans to end full support - including warranty claims and free help with problems - in April 2009. The company will continue providing a more limited level of service until April 2014.

Gillen said efforts like Gruman's grass-roots petition may not influence the software maker, but business customers' demands should carry more clout.

"You really can't make 69 percent of your installed base unhappy with you," he said.

(source)

I use XP. If I get a new computer, I will downgrade from Vista back to XP. Vista has stunk since it first come out and it still stinks.

There's rumors of M$'s next OS, called "7". Many people hope that "7" will be better than Vista and will be like XP felt after the "ME" version of Windoze.

Oh, and the above article said this:

On the petition site's comments section, some users proclaimed they will downgrade from Vista to XP - an option available in the past to businesses, but now open for the first time to consumers who buy Vista Ultimate or Business editions - if they need to buy a new computer after XP goes off the market.

Anyone know anything about this? Is it an automatic thing or what?

Linkage:
Save XP petition
ZDNet article/post about Windows 7