Microsoft to Continue Win XP Licensing?

By Greg McNevin

April 28, 2008: The more Microsoft tries to resign Windows XP to history, the harder it appears to hang on. With SP3 coming out this week and the news that Dell is ready to use a clause in its Windows Vista agreement to keep offering XP to its customers into the conceivable future, even Steve Ballmer is now hinting that the old horse may have life in her still.

Microsoft was planning to phase out Windows XP on June 30 this year, however, according to CEO Steve Ballmer, if enough customers show they wish to keep on with XP it will continue licensing the OS past the cutoff date.

“XP will hit an end of life. We have announced one. If customer feedback varies, we can always wake up smarter but right now we have a plan for end of life for new XP shipments,” announced Ballmer during a news conference late last week.

Ballmer said that most consumers were choosing Vista, however, considering it is becoming extremely difficult to buy a new machine with anything but Vista preloaded on it, this could be somewhat up for debate.

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