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MS Offers Vista Upgrade Pricing To All
SlinkySausage writes "With a vague whiff of desperation, Microsoft is offering anyone who downloaded one of the betas or release candidates of Vista upgrade pricing for the full version. The 'special' deal is a sweetener for the fact that the betas will start expiring and becoming non-functional from May 31st. APC Magazine in Australia writes: 'Windows Vista is starting to look like those Persian rug stores which are always having a "closing down" sale... All stock has been slashed, save $$$, why pay more?'" Perhaps Microsoft is cognizant of straws in the wind such as a recent InformationWeek survey indicating that 30% of business have no intention of moving to Vista, ever.
You are forgetting something: ReactOS will be in beta by then according to their roadmap, "meaning a system which is suitable for every day use." At which point, users wanting to get off an aging OS will be able to move to ReactOS instead of Vista. Even if ReactOS moves slower than their roadmap predicts, it will be ready well before XP extended support ends in 2014. (You left out Linux, so I assume we are talking about Windows-like OSes. Significant improvements in WINE and the Linux desktop experience could nullify the necessity for a Windows-like OS, but that could be a long way off.)
Centralization breaks the internet.
The only problem with that is that only with retail versions do you get both the 32 bit and 64 bit versions. I built a new PC late last year and got a Windows XP Pro license (32 bit, OEM) with a free upgrade to Vista. I got my upgrade, Vista Business (32bit). There was no way for me to upgrade to the 64 bit version. I'm not quite interested in running 64bit quite yet but I want to do it in the future but unfortunately, unless I buy the retail version of Vista I'll be out of luck and the same will be the case for anyone that buys an OEM verisons.
XP came out Dec 31, 2001. From Microsoft's website http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifepolicy:
Microsoft will offer a minimum of 10 years of support for Business and Developer products. Mainstream support for Business and Developer products will be provided for 5 years or for 2 years after the successor product (N+1) is released, whichever is longer. Microsoft will also provide Extended support for the 5 years following Mainstream support or for 2 years after the second successor product (N+2) is released, whichever is longer. Finally, most Business and Developer products will receive at least 10 years of online self-help support.
Consumers get a little less time:
Microsoft will offer Mainstream support for either a minimum of 5 years from the date of a product's general availability, or for 2 years after the successor product (N+1) is released, whichever is longer. Extended support is not offered for Consumer, Hardware, Multimedia, and Microsoft Dynamics products. Products that release new versions annually, such as Microsoft Money, Microsoft Encarta, Microsoft Picture It!, and Microsoft Streets & Trips, will receive a minimum of 3 years of Mainstream support from the product's date of availability. Most products will also receive at least 8 years of online self-help support. Microsoft Xbox games are currently not included in the Support Lifecycle policy.
Ok. Minimum of 5 years. Seems kinda short, I guess. What's Ubuntu's policy?
From their announcement https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-announce/ 2005-October/000038.html:
Ubuntu is a Linux distribution for your desktop or server, with a
fast and easy install, regular releases, a tight selection of
excellent packages installed by default, every other package you can
imagine available from the network, a commitment to security updates
for 18 months after each release and professional technical support
from many companies around the world.
18 months. Now for the price, that's exceptional, but your argument had nothing to do with price, and everything to do with version upgrades. If updates are your metric for determining whether users are "forced" to upgrade, look no further than the announced support cycle for Ubuntu 5.10.
They looked like they'd gotten better, no doubt. With 6.06, you get 5 years of upgrades--the same minimum guaranteed by Microsoft http://www.ubuntu.com/news/606released:
Ubuntu is freely available, including security updates for five years on servers, with no restrictions on usage and no requirement to purchase support contracts or subscriptions per deployment.
But wait. The 7.04 release of Ubuntu reverts back to 18 months--they say that the 6.06 series was a "long term support release" https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-announce/ 2007-April/000102.html.
Ubuntu 7.04 will be supported for 18 months on both desktops and servers. Note that 6.06 LTS is a long-term support release, and so users requiring a longer support lifetime may choose to continue using that version rather than upgrade to or install 7.04.
So we're back to 18 months. Microsoft's stated support minimum is more than 3 times longer than Ubuntu's, except for the aberration of Ubuntu 6.06.
So who's 'forced' to upgrade in order to keep support?
I mainly focused on Ubuntu because that's what the person you replied to was talking about. Redhat, arguably the best known Linux vendor, gives their cycle here: http://www.redhat.com/security/updates/errata/ They give you 7 years of