Windows XP to outlive Vista
With just days to go before Microsoft finally stops selling Windows XP, the company has bowed to consumer pressure by agreeing to extend support for the operating system until 2014. Microsoft has also confirmed that Windows 7, the successor to its current Vista operating system, will be made available in 2010.
Microsoft has been under significant pressure from users to extend Windows XP support as many said they don’t plan to move to Vista any time soon. In 2007 the company extended XP’s life, saying it would still sell shrinkwrapped copies XP until 30 June 2008. System installers have until the end of the year before XP is gone for good.
Yesterday the company announced that while the June 30 sales deadline was still in place it would extend the April 2009 XP support deadline to 2014. The move suggests that Microsoft is becoming aware that the process of companies converting to Vista is taking a lot longer than originally planned.
In fact, by extending XP support to 2014 and promising the release of Windows 7 in 2010, the company is opening the way for companies to completely skip the move to Vista and move straight to Windows 7.
One of the high profile companies already planning to do this is chip making giant Intel. A source at the company told the New York Times recently that it won’t be deploying Windows Vista for its 80 000 employees but will wait for the launch of Windows 7 before upgrading.
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