Vista, the new OS from Microsoft (MSFT) was supposed to be so good that every customer and business using Windows would want to upgrade as soon as possible. But, a number of critics of Vista say that it has bugs, does not help PCs work with other machines like printers, and runs badly on lower-powered machines.
Apple (AAPL) has also been aggressively marketing its OS beyond its usual Mac base to see if it can pick-up Microsoft customers. Since a number of software experts like the Apple product better, the approach is probably meeting with some success.
In the face of all of this Microsoft has elected to keep its old OS, Windows XP, alive. According to The Wall Street Journal this is being done to help users of low-powered machines and will keep XP on the market for another two years. That would be about the time that Redmond introduces that OS version that comes after Vista. Consumers and business would be happy to skip a generation of Microsoft operating system software and take a look at the next product. At least keeping XP offers the chance of stopping customers from leaving altogether.
Give the people what they want, even if it hurts.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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