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Microsoft Counts Down To XP Death
mikejuk writes "Microsoft have just released an end-of-support countdown gadget that ticks off the days until XP is no longer supported — but it only runs under Vista or Windows 7! It focuses the mind on the fact that XP is being forcibly retired. It is a wake-up call to think hard about the unpleasant situation and consider the alternatives.So as you watch the count down to XP's death tick by think about the problems created by using software that actually belongs to someone else..."
So then buy from Redhat, or Ubuntu or whoever. Lots of folks will provide support for FOSS software. This is an old piece of FUD you are spewing here.
But if you can't do it yourself, being dependent on RedHat or Ubuntu really isn't any better than being dependent on Microsoft other than philosophical differences which really don't enter into a business decision.
We've seen people taking advantage of that option (for somewhat different reasons) just recently with OpenOffice, and for KDE3 there is the Trinity "fork".
Regarding "Ownership" though - I completely agree, just because MS stops support doesn't mean you can not use the software anymore. Similarly Ubuntu or Redhat will also eliminate support for older versions at some point.
What abuse of power? You can continue using XP for as long as you want; they don't magically make it stop working.
They are just saying they are not going to spend further time and money updating it. After almost 10 years this should have been expected seeing that most software isn't maintained nearly as long.
Total cost of ownerships figures are debatable, what is not is that with closed source sofware you do not decide your own IT strategy.
You just "do as told"..
If you like that, be their guest...
his is potentially good for the economy, because corporations across America will soon be forced to update the operating systems and IT departments may need to hire new techs for installations.
This is just another version of breaking windows (*sigh* just re-read this, the glass kind) being "good" for the economy because it caused people to buy windows and pay window repairmen. The "good" for the economy would be found instead in people switching to more efficient software, having less system downtime, and more security resulting in less spam/viruses wasting resources. But the simple forced switching causing companies to hire IT workers is not good for the economy.
Don't get me wrong, IT workers are important for a company, but you need to understand that all they do is lose a company money. Like HR, they usually don't produce product, they are on overhead. A good IT person can "save" a company huge sums of money by being efficient and lowering overhead and downtime company wide, but increasing IT budget is always a loss unless that increase is recouped by their ability to increase efficiencies elsewhere.
Dude, XP is over 10 years old. Please inform me which popular Linux desktop distro has backwards support for 10 year old packages?
XP was still on sale last year when I bought my netbook (now wiped and running Ubuntu). The date it was first released is meaningless.
It's very different, because there are multiple organisations that provide linux support and nothing to prevent new organisations springing up, while only one organisation provides windows support.
You wouldn't want to grow dependent on anything without there being a second source supplier who can step in if the first one fails. And similarly, multiple competing suppliers will result in better and cheaper service.
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You can upgrade that Ubuntu to the latest version for 0 GBP. People love to claim MS prices are in line, but they forget that they did not get a free win 7 disk in the mail.
Perhaps Microsoft should investigate why people are still using XP and haven't upgraded. The new Linux distributions are much nicer in many ways (I've been using Linux since 1998 in the server, on the desktop, and sometimes the laptop), so people want to upgrade. Why don't people want to upgrade to 7?
Debian, with in place upgrades there is no need for a standing version. Gentoo as well. This whole one version thing is a hold over from proprietary licensing.
If you want to go that route XP has not been supported that long, XP SP1 is for instance no longer supported, I do not believe SP2 is either.
Just because Microsoft won't support XP, doesn't mean my company won't still be using 14+ year old software.
Um...last time I checked there are around 73,357,145,315* companies in the world which will provide support for Micorosoft products
Last time I checked, there was one. And you probably couldn't afford it.
The problem here seems to be a misunderstanding of what 'support' means. Support means being able to get someone on the phone (or your favourite communications technology) and say 'this is broken, fix it,' and have them fix it. If your hardware or software configuration triggers a bug in the Windows 7 kernel causing it to crash, how many companies can offer support? One: Microsoft. A few other organisations have access to the source code, but none have the legal right to ship patches.
Now, if you're running Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and you have a bug like this, then you can get Red Hat to fix it if you have a support contract, but there are also many thousands of other companies willing to do the same work. For Linux and *BSD kernels, there are even individual consultants that a small business can afford to hire who will track down and fix a bug that only affects you. If you're in the same situation with regard to a Microsoft product and you're not a Fortune 500 company or a major government, you're pretty much out of luck.
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Luckily your box will continue to work fine; people seem confused by end of life. If you've never had problems and you don't need anything new (like patches to keep up with virus writers) then this end of life won't change your experience at all.
It's like selling you a car with a really long warranty that includes modifications due to changing laws - except the internet is a country that changes it's it's vehicle requirements all the time. When that warranty expires and they're not willing to keep working on your car (for free), doesn't mean you can't drive it around your own lot; leave it parked somewhere as a garage, or even drive on the road and try to avoid the police. It just means that the manufacturer is no longer providing a value added service; when they said they wouldn't.