Microsoft Corp., trying to secure its place in an emerging area of the PC market, is extending the life of its Windows XP operating system — but in a limited way that doesn’t promise to satisfy people who still prefer XP over its successor, Windows Vista.
The company said Thursday that it will supply Windows XP Home Edition for at least two more years for a specific category of low-cost PCs. But Microsoft is sticking to its June 30 cutoff date for its sales of the older operating system for mainstream PCs.
That means, for most consumers, XP soon won’t be available on store shelves or pre-installed on PCs. The exception will be a category that Microsoft is defining as “ultra low-cost” computers, such as the Asus Eee PC and Intel Classmate PC.
“There’s a huge demand for Windows on these PCs,” said Michael Dix, a Windows general manager, citing strong interest among first-time PC buyers and people looking for second computers. “Windows is attractive to them because it’s what they’re familiar with. They know that it’s going to function the same way that they’re used to. … So there’s a great preference there.”
The catch, for Microsoft, is that such PCs often lack the hardware needed to run the beefy Windows Vista adequately. Among other things, they come with limited storage capacity.
By extending its sales of Windows XP for those types of machines, industry analysts say, the company is hoping to better position itself against the open-source Linux operating system in that segment of the PC market.
“This is yet another proof point that Windows Vista is just too big to cover everything that everyone wants to do with it,” said industry analyst Michael Silver, a vice president with the Gartner research firm. “You need something smaller, more modular.”
After Windows Vista’s turbulent first year, including problems with device and software compatibility, some people have been hoping to see Microsoft extend Windows XP’s life span in a more significant way. Microsoft previously extended Windows XP sales by five months, to the current June 30 cutoff. But Microsoft reiterated Thursday that, beyond that date, it won’t be selling XP to retailers or to PC makers for installation on mainstream computers.
“What we’re hearing from (computer makers) is that they’re comfortable with this change, and that it serves the needs of their customers,” Microsoft’s Dix said. Making sure that the industry is focusing on Windows Vista is “really going to serve customers well,” he said.
Microsoft said it will sell Windows XP Home for ultra low-cost PCs through June 30, 2010, or one year after general availability of the next Windows version, whichever is later.
For mainstream use of Windows XP, the upcoming June 30 cutoff isn’t as hard-and-fast as it might seem. That’s when Microsoft will stop selling Windows XP Home and Professional to PC makers and retailers for mainstream machines, but those companies may continue to distribute and resell copies that they’ve purchased from Microsoft before that point, Dix said. PC buyers may continue to see XP as an option for some time beyond that date.
The June 30 date also doesn’t apply to system builders — companies that create individual PCs from scratch. Microsoft says it plans to stop selling Windows XP to them on Jan. 31, 2009.
Microsoft says it will provide product support, including security updates, for mainstream users of Windows XP until April 2009. Users of business versions will also be able to pay to receive extended support until April 2014.
Richard Shim, an analyst at IDC, said Thursday that he was surprised by Microsoft’s decision to stick to the June 30 date for the end of mainstream Windows XP sales. “There’s still demand in the market for XP,” he said.
Some are still hoping that Microsoft will change its mind.
“It’s unfortunate that they’ve let their blindness about Vista lead them to ignore what their customers are telling them,” said Galen Gruman, an executive editor at InfoWorld in San Francisco. The online technology news and review publication has launched a “Save Windows XP” initiative, including an online petition that garnered more than 106,000 signatures at last count.
Gruman said the unusual campaign arose from discussions with corporate technology officers and others. “Everything we were hearing said it’s wrong to stop XP on June 30. … There was something real there, and we just decided that someone had to say something about it.”
In February, a series of internal Microsoft e-mails, released in a court case, showed that some of the company’s own officials experienced problems with Windows Vista on their PCs in the early days after its release. After issuing a series of fixes over the past year, Microsoft last month released the first Vista “service pack,” a big bundle of updates meant to address problems.adsonar_placementId=1270134;adsonar_pid=214758;adsonar_ps=1450938;adsonar_zw=472;adsonar_zh=200;adsonar_jv=’ads.adsonar.com’;
