Microsoft did everything it could at the launch and in a marketing re-launch, but Vista remains a failed experiment. Worse, at least for Redmond, Vista may mark the turning point when Microsoft lost the operating system as the foundation of its business.Let it be said that Windows Vista didn’t fail for a lack of trying.
Microsoft had declared the drop-dead end-of-life date for new installations
of Window XP—the last generation of the operating system—would come Jan. 31, 2009. Now, under
pressure from business consumers and system builders, it’s extending XP’s life
once again. System builders can place orders for XP through distributors for
deliveries as late as May 2009.
Extending the deadline is good news for PC solution providers and system
builders, who have labored to deliver machines to customers loaded with Vista
only to have them rejected out of hand. Microsoft’s decision may also signal
the final act of contrition for the beleaguered operating system that, despite
Microsoft’s repeated efforts, has failed to capture the imagination of
business-technology consumers.
Microsoft will claim more than 300 million installations of Vista
since its release, but most of those are consumer PCs sold through retailers
and direct distributors. According to a recent survey by ITIC
and Sunbelt Software of more than 700 senior corporate executives, only 10
percent had deployed Vista on their desktops, whereas 88
percent reported Windows XP as their primary client OS.
Some analysts and industry observers say the latest reprieve will put more
pressure on Microsoft to expedite the release of Windows 7, the next-generation
operating system that’s based on the Vista framework but
with a significantly smaller memory footprint. The reality, we may find, is
that Vista is the last meaningful client-side Windows
release. Here’s why.
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