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Maybe With Help From Google and Adobe, Microsoft Can Kill Windows XP
colinneagle sends this excerpt from Network World:
"Google announced last Friday that, in accordance to its policy of supporting a current browser and the immediate predecessor, its Google Apps productivity suite would drop support for Internet Explorer 8 once Windows 8 ships. Neither IE9 nor IE10 are available on XP. Adobe announced on the Photoshop Blog that the next version of Photoshop CS would support only Windows 7 and 8. The current version, CS6, is available for XP but, amusingly, not for Vista, which was its successor. This is a much-needed boost for Microsoft, which anxiously wants to put XP out to pasture after 11 years. Despite efforts to get rid of the old OS, XP still holds 43% of the market, according to the latest monthly data from Net Applications. Among Steam customers, Windows 7 has 70% market share, covering both 32-bit and 64-bit, while XP has 12%. That confirms what has been known for some time: consumers are adopting Windows 7 at a much faster rate than businesses. I know there is a whole economic argument to be had, and these numbers are not precise or scientific, but if XP really can be found in only 12% of households but 43% of businesses (or something close to that), then it really is time for the enterprise to stop dragging its tail."
You'd think so.... However, you'd be mistaken. The main reason for this is that XP is used by two types of "customers":
Those people will not switch until they get new computers and that simply is the way it works and should work. Finally! Stupid upgrade treadmill.
From an administrator point of view, Windows XP is well known and mature. Which means, you can anticipate problems and make sure everything works like expected. With 7 (let's ignore Vista) a whole slew of new problems got exposed (not necessarily for the users, but for the admins... Try partitioning a 7 machine in two parts: one drive OS/Apps, on drive Data... Results must be seamless for newly created users. Another example is to copy a user profile as a default template. 7 is a true bitch for these things)
What 7 brings to the table, and the only reason I recommend it, is 64-bit. If you need more than 4GB RAM, get 7. I think Microsoft should do a "Windows Classic" which is XP re-branded, and sell it as a subscription to finance future patches. Let's say 5€/month. I think it would sell like hotcakes. I think I'd take it for the few remaining XP machines, I haven't converted to Linux yet. (I'll probably convert one back to XP as the ATI drivers for that laptop suck donkeys balls)
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
The difference between consumer and business is Vista. Businesses never went near it, and consumers can't wait to get rid of it.
If you are a company that has a working system that runs fine, why would you force an upgrade just because XP is n't used by consumers any more? Even if you put the economic costs at zero which it certainly is n't and the summary brushes aside way to casually; you always have a risk factor of unforseen issues getting passed testing.
No business should upgrade for the sake of technology fashion, weather it be OS or applications. Hell you see companies running custom DOS programs all the time.
But Google is still supporting XP with their Windows version of Chrome... No need for IE...
If MS forces almost half of its customers (that's more or less what the 43% of the desktop/laptop market is) to upgrade they are going to lose some of them in the process. Some people will buy a Mac instead of a new PC, some will buy a tablet and forget about their old PC, some will install Linux. I can understand why Google is happy with that, even understand why Adobe doesn't care about XP (its customers have to keep working with its sw, no matter what) but MS is sending some of its customers to somebody else. Furthermore I believe that many companies are waiting to get a boost thanks to the WinXP end of life in 2014.
Why would business from XP to Windovs 7 (or Windows 8)? For that matter, why would non-gamer browsing and office only user do that? As long as they do not need some new Photoshop or other Windows 7 software, they have no need to update.
Businesses are not supposed to buy new stuff just because it is shiny, they are supposed to spend money only when it is effective. Home users can spend the same money on tons of other fun or useful things. Why new computer when the old one is just fine for what you do?
Companies have a bunch of "good" reasons to keep XP.
Rather they have no good reasons NOT to stick with XP.
Except ofcourse artificial limits created by Microsoft.
If MS would keep supporting XP, it could easily go on for another ten years.
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Maybe it is well past time that companies (i.e. Microsoft) learnt to support customers rather than drive them. If 43% of businesses are really happy with XP then they should continue to support it. Many companies are fed up with constant updates (although constant is not an apt word with this time frame) and would prefer to stick with something that works. Most companies are not interested in bleeding edge and just want Doris to be able to type up that invoice for the roof that Gary has fixed or the sink that Fred unblocked or whatever and updating the computer to do the same job is of zero importance.
It is one thing that a company does not want to continue to develop an old product but when they pull the plug on updates etc. rather than just leaving the server running, I feel that they are not complying with their agreement. If Doris needs to run a new scanner or something that does not work with XP then it is time for her to talk to her boss but while she is happy with her laserjet churning out reams of invoices and heating up the office at the same time, let her.
Written using XP :-)
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
When you have thousands of dollars in CAD software (for example) on a system which works fine for your needs, you lose time and money changing out your PC. If some of that software doesn't work well with later Windows versions, you lose even more.
The cost of the PC and OS may be trivial, but replacing it may "cost" much more than buying a new machine.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Nitpicky point, but Steam figures should never be used to represent the whole consumer market. Gamers are more likely to have new rigs or want to play games that already don't support XP. I suspect XP users a more likely to be users with simple needs who have a system that works for them and don't want to chance. For that matter, Photoshop isn't likely to sway them either. Google Apps maybe, if it includes Gmail -- but damn if that doesn't miss the point of using webmail in the first place.
Virtualisation.
I don't really care what I "use" on the desktop so long as I have something that supports the hardware I need, and a desktop that I can work on without needing to retrain.
Thus virtualisation is being taken up by companies. Why? Slap ANYTHING on the machine itself. Virtualise an old version of XP that you KNOW how it works, all its quirks, all the software you use is compatible with, all your users know how to use, and you already have disk images and licenses for.
So you're not selling XP licenses (businesses already have them), but you might sell a Windows license or not depending on how well Windows works for them. Hell, with modern machines you notice precisely zero overhead from virtualisation and it absolutely DOES NOT MATTER what's running the VM.
I imagine VM companies are raking it in at the moment. If they're not, they're not pushing their product's features well enough.
The argument to upgrade "because everyone has it at home" is so ludicrous as to be beyond mention and shows absolutely zero knowledge of what a business is and how to run an efficient one. Nobody serious in business is still using IE6 (or if they are, it's locked down by virtualisation or proxies that don't let it stray to the Internet), but lots of people in business are seriously using XP. Because it works, predictably.
The only reason to change is hardware support, which virtualisation pretty much solves. Hell, hardly anybody dual-boots any more when they want to try Linux - just run it in a free VMWare player or equivalent at full speed and isolated from the rest of the machine.
That said, I got a new laptop recently. It came with Windows 7 (and a Windows 8 upgrade offer). I kept it on there but, hell, it took me a few days to get it how I like it and turn all the crap off and install some freeware to make it useable. And it will take me FOREVER to get used to the explorer windows (which are horrendous). So I slapped my old hard drive into the second drive bay and virtualised XP on it until I feel I can transition smoothly.
I got Windows 7. Made it as close to XP as possible. Then run XP on it to get work done. Sure, my Steam games are running in a 64-bit Windows 7 install, but that's not anywhere indicative of the OS being a choice itself (only that it's "passable"). I also have an Ubuntu VM to test my code against for multi-platform and 32/64 bit issues. And my browser has never been IE, even on Windows 95.
The fact remains: If you offered those businesses a paid-for Windows XP update, they would probably pay it rather than the massive HIT that they will take moving things to newer Windows. Hell, if they're going to have to have Windows 7, it's cheaper to virtualise their old machines and they get a lot more functionality back for doing so (e.g. rollbacks, snapshots, always clean images, etc.)
First, it was already posted: http://it.slashdot.org/story/12/09/15/0130219/google-kills-apps-support-for-internet-explorer-8
Second, IE8 is being dropped, not Windows XP.
IE8 does not equal Windows XP.
IE8 is a web browser.
XP is an operating system that supports many web browsers and applications, and more than one at the same time.
There are plenty of other SUPPORTED ways to access Google Apps on Windows XP:
- Google Chrome
- Mozilla Firefox
- Apple Safari
- Google Chrome Frame
- Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook
With all of the above solutions, Internet Explorer 8 will still work on the computer for other websites that are required (whether that is a technical requirement or user preference). These solutions work in ADDITION to Internet Explorer, they do NOT replace Internet Explorer.
If the organisations IT policy is so rigid that they can't allow any of these solutions onto their network but still use Windows XP, then I doubt that this kind of organisation would be using such progressive and relatively new (compared to on-premise) solutions such as Google Apps in the first place.
We'll be replacing those shop-floor Win XP machines - right after we get rid of the Novell Netware servers. Yeah - we still use Netware.
I guess you'll have to mod me 'funny' because you can't mod me "sad".
Place nail here >+
The cost of upgrading from XP can be prohibitive. I work part time for a small market radio station. Just to replace the OS it is $150 a pop. There is the new version of the automation software that will not work with XP, that is an additional 15K. The new software won't work with the old servers so add 4-5K on that. Then there are the little things. Adobe Audition1 is a great product! Doesn't work so well on 7. That's another $350 a pop Some business just can't afford it yet.
They won't revoke your ability to use XP. They just won't update it any more. Although I guess if they turn the registration servers off that would break any XP machine that needed a new motherboard. They should at least issue a patch in 2014 to remove the registration requirement.
Where I work, I use Windows XP to run an Exchange client, deal with some intranet sites that only work with IE, and run a Cygwin X server.
Most of my work is in Linux; whatever docs I need to read from the Microsoft "productivity" suite, I can read with OpenOffice or one of its variants, and I never need to create or edit one, so that doesn't matter.
I don't use Adobe ANYTHING, cause I'm a bit too security conscious (or, paranoid, if you prefer); evince, again, is close enough (actually, better, most of the time) for PDFs.
Why should the company piss away the license cost and three days to a week of my time (~USD$2000/week) to get back to a usable work environment, for absolutely no benefit from a Windows 7 "upgrade"?
I still have Vista installed on my machine with Ubuntu. I use iTunes. I sync to an iPod. I do not care. But it is not time for businesses to drop XP. It is time for us to smash the computers that rule us. It is time for the humans to rise up. It is time to climb to the top of the highest towers and launch our laptops off to the waiting cement below. It is time to smash the computer overlords with baseball bats, to storm into the server rooms of the universities, of the schools, of the businesses, of the research facilities. We must destroy the computers that our attempting to take over our lives. Take up a hoe, or a shovel, or a hammer and begin to destroy all the electronic devices around you. Take off your wristwatch. Is it digital? Destroy it immediately. Destroy everything that contains silicon microchips. If your car was made after 1984 set it on fire with gasoline. Then, and only then, can we form the perect agrarian society. Thank you.
This is not a troll and I am not a spy. You went to the crazy house and said you were going as a student to school. You are abnormal because we have schools here, in all the suburban urban areas.
In his mind, James Taylor is going to Carolina in his mind.
The hippie evangelist kind do, and yes, many shops are run by these people. However, they choose mac for ideological reasons because there's no technical reason why the same work cant' be done on windows...at least as far as adobe goes.
If it is not broke, do not fix it. If your system (which can be huge and cost millions) is working perfectly well on XP, why update?
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
Microsoft created a vendor lock-in strategy. Expensive and proprietary, they encouraged everyone to develop develop develop for it.
Microsoft has pushed the limits of what companies will spend for OSes and applications. That everything is so very integrated, while it encourages business to work within its proprietary framework, prevents them from easily leaving it.
The short description of the problem? It's deeply complex and rooted within business systems and Microsoft created things this way intentionally.
What did they expect would happen?
That version is called Volume License Key activation. Microsoft actually made it more annoying to run then standard retail Vista/7 copies by requiring a business to run a "key management" license server.
Speaking as a programmer (Python web apps mostly) I find that I am much more productive on Mac than Windows. This is partly due to the much better command shell, but also due to the fact that I host my apps on UNIX and Mac OS X is a form of UNIX. The bottom line is that I can spend hours and days trying to get some python module working properly on Windows, chasing down compilers, etc., and on Mac it's a matter of "pip install module". It also helps that Macs tend to be much more reliable.
Choose the best platform for the task.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
The hold back on XP probably is not ie6 compatibility for the majority of businesses. On the other hand, business tend to make decisions based on ROI. If upgrading to Windows 7 gives a favorable ROI, businesses will upgrade. If not, they won't. For most business users, word processing and spreadsheets are the major applications. Does switching to Windows 7 make one type faster? No, of course not. Therefore there is a low ROI.
Another move has been to hosting apps on a terminal server and then just using an RDP client. Again, the ROI on moving users from XP to Win 7 in that scenario is also poor.
Businesses make business decisions based on the bottom line. If they can get a better return doing X than Y, then they will do X. It's not that businesses can't benefit from switching to Win 7. It's just that they don't benefit as much as using those resources elsewhere in the company.
I've never had to register anything with Apple.
>80 column hard wrapped e-mail is not a sign of intelligent
>life
I've never had to register anything with Apple.
You must not be interested in writing code, then.
They either need to keep the servers up indefinitely, or release a patch that removes activation. Anything less is a repossession of a purchased product. The problem for them is that they won't want to run the activation servers forever, but if they were to release a patch that removed activation, XP market share would skyrocket. What they will likely need to do if they want to stay legit is to keep the activation servers up long enough that the bulk of modern software requires features not available in XP. Once that happens, they can un-DRM XP without having a huge influx of new users.