Software giant yields to demand and extends operating system OEM and retail availability another five months.

Microsoft announced today that it is extending the availability of its Windows XP range of operating system editions an extra five months with the company now saying that it will remove the popular operating system from sale on June 30 next year.

Windows XP Starter Edition will continue to be available in emerging markets until June 30, 2010.

Despite the announcements coming from the software giant about the popularity of its latest offering, Windows Vista, it appears that demand for Windows XP continues unabated.

Nike Nash, corporate vice president for Windows Product Management at Microsoft, says the company might have been optimistic in ditching Windows XP.

“While we’ve been pleased with the positive response we’ve seen and heard from customers using Windows Vista, there are some customers who need a little more time to make the switch to Windows Vista. As it turns out, our official policy as of 2002 is that versions of Windows are available through our retail and direct OEM partners for four years after they ship. Obviously this policy didn’t work with Windows XP given Windows Vista’s delivery date. As a practical matter, most of our previous operating system releases were available for about two years after the new version shipped, so maybe we were a little ambitious to think that we would need to make Windows XP available for only a year after the release of Windows Vista.” Nash said.

The company has now sold in excess of 60 million licenses for Windows Vista and although it’s clear it would dearly love to move the entire Windows XP install base to its newer operating system, feedback from major system integrators indicates that Windows XP is still an important part of the computing landscape.

While the company will stop retail and OEM sales of Windows XP come June 30, 2008, Microsoft’s system builder partners will be able to offer Windows XP on new systems up until January 30, 2009.

According to Nash, the trend for retail customers has been to pick up Windows Vista with a new PC rather than purchasing it at retail.

“While enterprise customer sales continue to be a fairly even mixture of volume license and OEM purchases, we’re seeing some new trends with retail customers in particular, as the number of PCs and other machines sold on the market is approximately double what we saw when Windows XP launched. A large cause of this increase in PC sales is due to the drop in hardware costs for OEM manufacturers. We’re also seeing more retail customers purchasing their new Windows operating system when they get a new PC than we ever have before, rather than purchasing it standalone. And that trend is likely to continue, even as PC purchasing preferences shift, as analysts are predicting that mobile PC sales will eclipse those of traditional desktop PCs by 2010.” Nash said.

Given that Microsoft was charging close to double and triple the Windows XP prices for its Windows Vista operating systems, at least in Australia, we wonder just how much the proportional cost of Windows Vista to computer hardware is affecting that trend.

Bottom line, if you plan to purchase a copy of Windows XP, you’ve got until June 30, 2008 – after that, you’ll have to hope you can find a PC builder that will still offer you a copy. From then on, its Windows Vista or bust.

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3.20 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."