Microsoft to pull XP and support

[ninja9578]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080414/...rosoft_save_xp Might be shooting themselves in the foot since it seems there are a lot of comments saying that many XP users would rather switch to Linux or OSX than use Vista. With the momentum of Apple it seems like a dumb thing for Microsoft to do. Will be interesting to see what the market does. I'd be less than surprised if many companies would follow IBM and Dell in offering computers with Ubuntu pre-installed.

[Ynot]

there are so many conflicting messages coming out of MS lately concerning XP They need people to buy Vista it's their life-blood (that, and Office account for most of their yearly revenue) But their customers are damn near revolting at the mention of XP's end-of-life. I get the feeling they're just running in circles wondering what to do On the one hand, we've got XP Service Pack 3 due to be released anytime now (officially "April 2008") Yet, XP is being pulled from the shelves in June, just 2 months after the service pack's released But not for the new ultra-portable laptops (EeePC, and others), apparently For these devices (which can only just cope with XP, and have no chance in hell of running Vista) XP will be extended for under a special license But security updates for XP are due to cease in April 2009, a year from now All the while, Windows 7 is rumoured to be on track for release in 2010 There's even less incentive to buy Vista now, knowing it's going to be canned in 18 months time but there's going to be a gap of at least 18 months between XP end-of-life'ing, and Win7 being released (that's assuming it's not delayed - lest we forget Vista was 3 years late) In that time, people will be running an unpatched XP It's going to be interesting, to say the least....

[wasup]

Awesome, means more people going to linux Or, well, the one nice side-effect of Vista dominance is that all computers will have to become super-powerful to meet the need of Vista, letting the much-less-demanding linux own on the new, cheaper, more powerful computers. But yeah, very, very bad decision. Seriously, who makes the decisions for windows?

[Sornaensis]

Not Bill Gates.

[Ynot]

Not Bill Gates. you got to give it to him, the man knew when to jump ship

[Sornaensis]

Yep. Now he's throwing all his money into charity. What a waste.

[ninja9578]

Awesome, means more people going to linux I don't see that happening unless big companies start to push it. I see more people flocking to Apple because of the popularity of the iPod and because they advertise. No one advertises that their computers run Linux and the only people that know that IBM and Dell sell Linux boxes are computer nerds. It'll be interesting to see what happens, it a great time to be in the computer field

[wasup]

I don't see that happening unless big companies start to push it. I see more people flocking to Apple because of the popularity of the iPod and because they advertise. No one advertises that their computers run Linux and the only people that know that IBM and Dell sell Linux boxes are computer nerds. It'll be interesting to see what happens, it a great time to be in the computer field Well I didn't have like, a mass migration in mind or anything. Simply that people on the edge are much more likely to go to linux, and occasionally some others will be sick of vista and look for alternatives. But yeah, ubuntu can never grow large, because there is no money in it. It really comes down to that, unfortunately. But I suppose the fact that it's NOT large is nice because no one makes viruses for it either Though I suppose I would rather deal with the possibility of viruses (and ubuntu is inherently, I believe, less susceptible to viruses than windows) in exchange for much more compatibility with software and hardware, and generally the world.

[ninja9578]

and ubuntu is inherently, I believe, less susceptible to viruses than windows You are correct, it's UNIX-style back end is far less susceptible to viruses than Windows. There is some money being put into Ubuntu, but not very much. Specifically the companies that use Ubuntu (Novell, IBM...) do push some money into it.