posted 06-30-2008 09:35 PM                    

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XP hooked users, but now it gets the hook

Tom Abate, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, June 30, 2008

Petitions are a time-honored political tool to save endangered species, preserve open space and agitate for change.

Now Microsoft Corp. finds itself the target of a petition drive to save - get this - a PC operating system.

Today the Redmond, Wash., software giant officially stops selling Windows XP, the program that animates millions of business and consumer PCs.

Microsoft wants to push corporate and consumer buyers toward Windows Vista, its new-and-improved program to do things like display glitzier graphics and keep spyware off the machine.

But many PC users are resisting this forced migration, and a San Francisco technology journalist has gone so far as to post a petition at SaveXP.com that has gathered 210,000 signatures.

"This is classic advocacy: If you think something's wrong, say something about it," said Galen Gruman, executive editor of InfoWorld.com, a trade publication that caters to the professionals who install and maintain corporate computer systems.

Gruman said the petitions are being sent to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who emerges now from the shadow of the retiring Bill Gates to confront an embarrassing revolt.

For instance, Intel Corp., the chipmaker that has long been Microsoft's partner in dominating the PC industry, says that while it is testing Vista "in some departments," it still uses XP.

"We have not deployed Vista across the enterprise," said Intel spokesman Bill Calder.

While such rebuffs may hurt Microsoft's pride, Vista's unenthusiastic reception is unlikely to put a big dent in its bottom line, especially in the roughly two-thirds of the PC market devoted to corporate computer sales.

Al Gillen, vice president of research for the market research firm IDC, explained that corporate buyers have "downgrade rights" that allow them to load Windows XP onto new PCs instead of Vista - even though they will actually pay for the newer operating system when they buy new hardware.

"For business customers, it's a nonissue," Gillen said.

But for the other 35 percent of the market, including consumers who lack "downgrade rights," the discontent could benefit rivals like Apple's Macintosh operating system and Linux, the populist software developed on the Internet and owned by no one.

"Apple is doing everything right, hammering at Microsoft on a daily basis and doing it brilliantly," said Lance Ulanoff, editor-in-chief of PC Magazine, a publication aimed at average users.

Michael Gartenberg, a PC industry analyst for Jupiter Research, said that by forcing customers to migrate from XP to Vista, Microsoft risks making the same mistake as the Coca-Cola Co. when it temporarily replaced its tried-and-true formula with New Coke in 1985.

"You always want to pull your customers along, you never want to push them," said Gartenberg, adding, "When people realize they're being forced to try something new anyway, a lot of them decide to try Pepsi."

Gillen, the IDC analyst, said that to a certain extent, Microsoft is the victim of its own success. "XP is a pretty good product," he said, and while Vista is arguably better, "a pretty good product can hang on for a while."

In response to its critics, Microsoft has already softened its initial posture regarding the switchover. Microsoft has said ultramobile PCs - like the new $500 laptops from Hewlett-Packard and the Taiwanese firm Asus - can be sold with XP.

Microsoft also has promised to provide extended customer support and fix bugs for Windows XP until 2014.

But the petition signatures being sent to Redmond seem unlikely to win a broader reprieve.

"We're aware of the campaign but continue to be guided by what we hear from customers and partners," Microsoft said in a statement. "And what we're hearing in the full range of feedback we're receiving is that the transition plan we've outlined makes sense."

But Gruman, the tech editor from San Francisco, said while there's not much precedent for Microsoft admitting wrong, the company has reversed itself under similar circumstances so as to make things right.

Gruman recalled that, in 2000, Microsoft pushed a similar upgrade from its Windows 98 operating system to Windows Millennium, a successor that lived just long enough to be named one of the 25 worst technology products of all time by PC World magazine.

After officially killing Windows 98, but before it was able to launch Windows XP, Microsoft released Windows 98 Second Edition. So long as customers want XP, and Microsoft can make money selling it, Gruman asks why not.

But Ulanoff, of PC Magazine, says that if Microsoft has erred, it is being too permissive because it will have to support XP and Vista while developing its next operating system, Windows 7.

"What Microsoft tries to do with its OS is to support the world," he said.

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posted 07-01-2008 04:08 AM                       

quote: Bobby Henderson

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If they want to stick Vista on every Windows-based PC, they ought to at least let users be able to dual boot a copy of XP as well.

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