Microsoft Already Extended Windows XP Licensing
|
News Analysis. Windows 7-to-Windows XP downgrade licenses aren't surprising. So why are they suddenly news? |
On April 4, I saw the AppleInsider news item about Microsoft extending Windows XP licensing until 2010. At first, I thought that perhaps somebody had accidentally republished an old story. On April 3, 2008, Microsoft extended Windows XP licensing until 2010.
Today, the story about a special extension is everywhere. But is there one? The year-ago extension, for Windows XP Home on netbooks, was tentatively until June 30, 2010. The one reported by AppleInsider is until April 30, 2010. It could just as easily be for netbooks, although the report claims downgrade licenses. Which one doesn't matter. The licensing specific to netbooks was an extension. The one reported over the weekend really isn't.
What perhaps is more relevant to enterprises: Operating system support, which according to Microsoft's Support Lifecycle site, ends next week. Mainstream support is over for all Windows XP versions on April 14. Extended support, which businesses pay extra for, continues through August 2014. Kind of makes you feel all warm and cozy about continuing those Windows XP deployments.
From AppleInsider's story:
AppleInsider can exclusively report that according to a source within Hewlett Packard, Microsoft has granted the PC giant an extension to its existing rights to continue selling the nearly eight year old Windows XP on the company's business desktops, workstations, and notebooks in place of Windows 7 for another year.
Microsoft isn't excited about the XP extension, as the internal communique provided by the source stated, 'It's important to remind customers that Microsoft are still planning to retire XP Pro Mainstream support on April 14th 2009 and will only provide OS security updates beyond that date unless the customer has an Extended Hotfix Support contract. MS Extended Support for XP Pro ends on April 8th 2014."
The use of "are" after Microsoft suggests a European communication, unless AppleInsider corrected "is" for "are" according to its house style. AppleInsider has an excellent track record reporting on Apple. Maybe Microsoft isn't yet the site's forte. Licensing is no place to start. Microsoft licensing is messy compared with Apple's.
Microsoft has a longstanding policy of offering two different kinds of downgrade licenses. These predate Windows Vista and Seven. The first: Volume-licensing customers with the right plan in place can downgrade to an older Windows version. Pretty old, if desired. Developers have access, too. Microsoft Developer Network has versions going back to Windows 3.1 for download. The second: user downgrade rights, which for Vista applied to the Business and Ultimate versions. My Sony VAIO VGN-Z590 came with XP Pro downgrade disks, whether or not I wanted them; I didn't.
There's no reason why Microsoft wouldn't continue offering downgrades after Windows 7 ships, even for year. It wouldn't be unprecedented for Microsoft to offer downgrade rights two Windows versions back. Rather, Microsoft would make a huge customer service blunder by doing anything else.
According to analysts, only about 10 percent of enterprises had deployed Windows Vista by the end of 2008. The dominant Windows version is XP. Many enterprises will deploy Windows 7 in chunks, not companywide, sticking with longstanding practice. Typical scenario: A business deploys some new PCs with Windows 7, but, for compatibility reasons, downgrades some others to Vista or XP.
Many volume-licensing customers can deploy XP; they have the rights, the software media and the means. But many small businesses, and some consumers, will need another source—the OEM. They'll pay extra for the XP downgrade, too, as they do today when buying a new PC with Windows Vista.
There's a smugness to the AppleInsider story, about how bad the Windows 7-to-XP downgrades are for Microsoft. Not at all. Microsoft sells two licenses for one computer. That's not such a bad business, and it still will let Microsoft claim X number of Windows 7 licenses shipped later on.
Something else needs clarification. AppleInsider's Prince McLean writes:
Whether Microsoft will allow home users and other licensees apart from HP the right to sell new PCs with the bundled restore media to install a pre-Vista version of Windows still remains to be seen. If Microsoft does not, it may face pressure from PC makers and even push them to begin shipping Ubuntu or their own customized edition of Linux on new PCs, as Acer, Dell, HP, and others have already begun doing in the netbook market.
By the terms of Microsoft's antitrust settlement/remedy, all OEMs get equal terms for Windows licenses. So what Microsoft offers HP must be available to other PC manufacturers. It's outrageous speculation that any OEM would use Linux as leverage to get Windows XP downgrade rights.
Circling back to where this all started: April 30, 2010. It looks to me more like Microsoft has set an end date for XP distribution rather than extending it. Unless Microsoft has changed previously announced life-cycle plans, XP downgrade media will be available to OEMs until June 30. They can continue selling the downgrades after that date, as long as they have the disks. HP and other OEMs merely need to stock up before the deadline. As for businesses with the aforementioned volume-licensing contracts, no extension is necessary. They have the rights they need, even to install Windows 95.
[Please send your tips or rumors to watchtips at gmail.com.]
Comments (12)
I am always skeptical by anything "Prince McLean" (aka Daniel Eran Dilger) writes about Microsoft, given his reporting and commentary history on Microsoft (as in gross distortions, inaccuracies and out-and-out lies about Microsoft in order to advance his opinion of Microsoft as being a venal corrupt and evil corporation or as incompetent bumbling and out of touch). He probably has the least credibility of any of the Apple-fandom pundits, and he is really a black eye on the credibility of AppleInsider.
Posted by Wes | April 6, 2009 9:00 PM
Oh, a link I had included had been stripped from the comment. It was a link to an exchange between John C. Welch and Daniel Dilger/"Prince McLean" demonstrating that (a) McLean *is* Dilger's alias, and (b) that Dilger happily admits that he writes articles to portray Microsoft in the worse possible light.
If I man, here is the link:
http://www.bynkii.com/archives/2008/08/happy_morning_coffee_fun_stupi.html
Posted by Wes | April 6, 2009 9:06 PM
Mr. Wilcox;
You got to be joking, right? I mean quoting Prince McLean. He's a bigoted clown, a jester and it makes me highly suspicious of your own lackluster journalistic qualities.
Also Joe, what is up with all the "Cross-site scripting errors and attempts on this site?
Posted by SmackDownGobbles | April 6, 2009 9:41 PM
Pft.
Microsoft IS evil.
All corporations are Evil. At least the large successful ones. That includes ones that put fruity stickers on everything they sell.
And Joe.... How is this news?
Posted by CC.Torment | April 6, 2009 11:04 PM
"It wouldn't be unprecedented for Microsoft to offer downgrade rights two Windows versions back. "
When XP came out, i do believe some OEMs still continued to offer NT4 as an option as well as windows 2000.
Posted by James Bennet | April 6, 2009 11:13 PM
Joe, you wrote: "Microsoft sells two licenses for one computer. That's not such a bad business."
Really?
You don't think having your customers purchase two operating systems when they only need one won't end up hacking them off?
I think that would be cause enough for them to consider another platform.
Posted by Chip | April 7, 2009 12:28 PM
"You don't think having your customers purchase two operating systems when they only need one won't end up hacking them off?"
Yes.
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/41660/118/
They might even start a class-action lawsuit... I expect the final decision about XP downgrade rights will depend on the outcome of this.
Those damn EU... They just want Microsoft's money. Some things never change.
Posted by billybob | April 7, 2009 12:53 PM
Somehow, all this talk about Vi$ta7 going be installed on all Netbooks, is just more PR and lies from M$. Starter Edition or not, Vista and/or 7even, will not be able to run well enough on the majority of Netbooks. Therefore, XP will continue on being the "windows" of choice for M$ to try to stop Linux from making further inroads on Netbooks. Vi$ta7even, will not be able to get the price up for M$ on Netbooks, and therefore, Netbook sales will continue to erode the profits of M$ in general. 7even will only run well on high end Netbooks.
However you want to look at the fact that XP still is being sold, and that M$ just can't quite kill it, does show that its newest OS (Vi$ta) is not what most users really want. It spells failure in a way, that M$ turned out a windows OS that really for the most part, would only work (somewhat) on new computers. Users with most older computers really could not use Vista. And the same thing really goes for 7even as well, no matter how much M$ tells users how slimmed down it is. 7even still uses about 5 times as many resources as XP did, a real saving over Vi$ta which used about 6 or 7 times as XP.
Android, is a big wildcard, in that Google might decide to promote it in a way that GNU/Linux cannot. Google having lots of cash behind them, and may find it useful for advertising revenue to have Android preinstalled on Netbooks, and maybe even full computers. Android, is basically just another Linux distro. But the presumption will be its a "google os" and not linux.
The big problem for M$ isn't going be these Netbooks, but the Netbooks with ARM cpu's. M$ cannot compete with these, as Windows is not ported to ARM. ARM netbooks will come with Linux, will be very cheap, will have battery life that will make them very attractive. Arm netbooks will get faster cpu's and dual core ones as well, after the first models come out. M$ has only Windows Moble (its phone OS) to put on these ARM Netbooks, so its doubtful anyone would want that. Plus, even should M$ decide to port Windows XP to the ARM, they would also have to port the applications as well. It doubtful that would ever be cost effective, as the ARM netbooks will be so cheap that paying for software is almost totally out of the question.
Posted by chips b malroy | April 7, 2009 1:43 PM
I do believe that when the dual-core ARM netbooks come out, that it will not be a long time coming before we see ARM laptops as well with bigger LCD's.
Posted by chips b malroy | April 7, 2009 1:55 PM
They're not buying "two operating systems"... They're buying one, and getting the other for free. Vista Business (and likely Seven Professional) and Vista Ultimate (Seven Ultimate) cost the same whether or not you get the XP downgrade.
Posted by Wes | April 8, 2009 2:55 AM
Customers are buying two operating systems. I am from the US and this was widely reported. Here are the first links that came up when I searched for it, but this news has been out for a while and can be researched. The OEMs say that they have to pass the charge onto the customer because Microsoft charges the OEMs for two systems (and hence makes money):
"Microsoft Sued Over Vista-To-XP Downgrade Fees" -- InformationWeek
www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=214200260
"Microsoft defends Vista to XP downgrade fee News - PC Advisor"
www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsid=110926 - 62k
"Woman sues Microsoft over Vista to XP 'downgrade' fee"
blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/archives/161925.asp
"Vista to XP 'downgrade' lawsuit revised" • Channel Register
Mar 9, 2009
www.channelregister.co.uk/2009/03/09/vista_xp_downgrade_lawsuit/
Posted by The Lady | April 8, 2009 12:30 PM
1. Vista Starter with machine
2. Upgrade to Business/Ultimate.
They are never using Business/Ultimate but they are forced to buy them to use XP. This is tying and can be illegal, especially if there is no competition in the market.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tying_%28commerce%29
You have to buy 2 copies of Windows to get the one you want. Why is there not an option to buy XP by itself or as an upgrade to Starter?
Posted by billybob | April 8, 2009 2:52 PM