“Starting April 8, 2014, there will be no more patches or updates — including security ones — issued for Windows XP,” Mary Jo Foley reports for ZDNet. “This is despite the fact that Windows XP still had an estimated 37 percent share of all desktop operating systems as of June 2013.”
MacDailyNews Take: Luddites.
“Microsoft and its partners have a lot of work to do between now and then to try to get more businesses off Windows XP,” Foley reports. “Microsoft’s top Windows priorities for its fiscal year 2014 (which began on July 1, 2013) are to move all businesses off XP and to become the number one business tablet in the market, said Erwin visser, General Manager of Windows Commercial, during a breakout session at the show.”
MacDailyNews Take: Good luck with that.
Foley reports, “Microsoft and its partners would need to migrate 586,000 PCs per day over the next 273 days in order to get rid of all PCs running Windows XP, Visser said… Visser told partners that there’s an estimated $32 billion service opportunity for them in moving users off XP, given that companies are spending an average of $200 per PC to move off XP to Windows 7 or Windows 8.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take:
Here’s to the dull ones. The Luddites. The tedious. The non-achievers. The square pegs in the square holes.
The ones who refuse to see things differently. They’re extremely fond of rules. And they’ll do anything to maintain the status quo. You can demote them, disagree with them, decry or defy them.
About the only thing you can’t help but do is to ignore them. Because they never change things. They don’t invent. They don’t imagine. They don’t heal. They don’t explore. They don’t create. They don’t inspire. They retard the progress of the human race.
Maybe they have to be boring, unimaginative a-holes.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see nothing whatsoever? Or sit in silence and hear nothing at all? Or gaze at a red planet and see only a red planet?
Microsoft makes tools for these kinds of tools.
While some see them as the dull ones, we see criminals. Because the people who are uninspired enough to think they can never change a thing, are the ones who hold us all back.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Edward W.” for the heads up.]
I did a 3 month stint at the biggest investment bank in the world back in February 2013 and I was given a Dell with XP.
I’m so glad it was only a 3 month contract.
Double whammy. Both Dell and XP. Glad you were able to cash out.
In other news . . .
Starting April 8, 2014, there will be no more patches or updates — including security ones — issued for OS X Puma
…which, of course, runs 0.0000037% of all desktop systems out there. “Apple and its partners would need to migrate .03 Macs per day over the next 273 days in order to get rid of all PCs running OS X Puma.”
Back in the day, that same IB gave me, what they told me was the first Compaq 386 in NYC. The day I left, I went out and bought myself a Mac SE for $1350 at 17th St Computers.
Wow. Did it have and AST memory card so you could bank switch?
I’d be shocked if they ever get my employer off Windows XP. There is nothing about any operating system after XP that gives them anything they want. The only way I’ll get Windows 7 is if they break the box on my desk and every XP box they have in storage.
“The only way I’ll get Windows 7 is if they break the box on my desk and every XP box they have in storage”
Not a half bad idea.
I run my QuickBooks in XP in Parallels. I despise Vista/7/8 and see no reason to change.
Just watch Microsoft move that “intractable” April 2014 deadline ahead, again. I love how they admit there’s 32 more billion to ripoff businesses with, and many businesses just don’t want to buy into it.
Balmer has plans to start marketing XP 365.
re MDN’s take “Luddites”…
Another way to look at it is that among Windoze users, the XP users are the wise ones.
Also — the vast majority of Windoze computers in offices are typewriters with a screen or for very low-end data entry and retrieval. Nothing more advanced than XP is necessary.
You’d think 12 years would be enough time to upgrade your windozer.
But, cheap people get a cheap product
One way that might help is if MS gives them a coupon to trade their XP machine in for a Mac! :-))
And of course free concert tickets…
I never understood why people resisted going to Win7 once the first bugs were fixed.
It was painless and very much like XP.
What about Win8?
The economic recession may have had something to do with it. Upgrading to Windows 7 (and Vista before that) was seen as a sketchy cost proposition for both individuals and businesses during an extended period of slumping sales, high unemployment, and dwindling disposable income.
The lack of ardour for Windows 8 can’t be explained away as glibly, but Microsoft’s project to promote a radical new desktop/mobile UI has so far failed to win enough hearts and minds to qualify as a solid win. We shall see.
If it’s very much like XP why bother? If there aren’t tangible benefits no one is going to buy the upgrade license, backup their machine and install a new OS. From a business perspective there is a lot of software that didn’t run properly straight away. That’s caused hesitation and businesses learned to do with what they have. The protocols and testing required before a business agrees to “upgrade” company wide may take a year. This is no easy task.
A regular joe is just going to wait until they need a new Windows PC rather than upgrading. They only last 3 years anyways.
There are many software titles the are used in the industrial automation field for programming PLC’s (programmable logic controllers) that will not run on anything later than WinXP. I have to use them every day and just got my company to buy a ‘new’ used laptop that would run WinXP and had a license. These things hold back many industrial users unless the use virtualization software to run both systems. I like the Mac solution with Parallels.
Either Microsoft loosens its grip on Windows 7 licenses or continues security patches for XP past the deadline, or they may as well hand that 37% right to Apple.
Although I wouldn’t put it past M$ to be so arrogant to presume all these people will flock to Windows 8. That’d be richly entertaining.
Well, they certainly are that arrogant. We’ve seen that over, and over…. and over.
E.g. they thought their bleating sheep would just buy the pile of dog doo that was Vista. But, in spite of a huge “rebellion”, they still didn’t get it. Nor have they gotten it ever since.
Who came up with the $200 upgrade estimate? There are no machines from the XP era that will support Win 7. So, every “upgrade” will require replacing a computer. Then there are the IT and training costs to consider. Many apps from that era will require upgrade to run in a new environment. This will be better than a government program for boosting the economy!
It may be 12 years old, but it took a good chunk of that time to get them off of Windows 98 and 2000. Some of those businesses probably feel like they just completed the transition TO Windows XP.
The really annoying thing for them is Windows 8. Most “typical” uses in enterprise are going to want Windows 7 instead. Windows 7 will become the next Windows XP. So they are being forced to transition from 12-year-old XP to a “new” OS that is already 4 years old. They will be second-class citizens of the Windows world from DAY ONE.
Instead, many will consider getting Macs (and iPads where appropriate). “Consideration” is all Apple needs to continue growing the Mac business year after year. 37% still on XP; WHAT an opportunity for Apple between now and next April, and then Microsoft will extend the deadline yet again.
I just envisioned an air mattress with so many patches that you couldn’t see the original mattress any longer.
I like your thinking!
Its an identical situation to the pie charts a few weeks back, with the highly fragmented Android user base, with many (the majority) of Android users still using very old, very dated software, whereas the vast majority of Mac OS X/iOS users are using the current version. I guess it’s that vision thing that Steve Jobs had that Steve Bulmer doesn’t.
Whenever I am out & about and see a business using a PC as a register, it is ALWAYS XP. As a previous person said, for many people, there’s no need what-so-ever to upgrade. No new expense to upgrade, no new menu to learn, etc. as a Mac user, I LOATH anything with that Windows logo. I don’t always have to work on a PC, but when I do, I prefer XP.
That is most interesting.
It will be much easier to move the off RT. They are doing that on their own. Oh and XP came before RT. They seem to have a sorting problem.
XP was the only version of Windows that was the least bit usable. Not surprising that people don’t want to just the other crap.
If MS were smart, they’d send out a recommended to all XP users patch written by MS that would fry all XP systems. Then MS can come back and say “Bad coding, oops, our bad”. Here is a coupon for $50.00 bucks off your purchase of a Windows 7/8 computer.
They’d screw it up and make XP bulletproof, and “adequate” for another 12 years.
I’d prefer a Commodore 64 running Geos than any flavour of Windows
Wow MDN take! Nerd poetry at it’s best?
Consider if half of the estimated 37 percent share of all desktop Windows XP computers choose OS X? Apple will be making a “Made in the USA” Mac Pro. Clean and virus hacker free too! Apple dominates the universities and colleges. Maybe at 85% to 95%. The boss has an iPhone and an iPad and will have and iOS entertainment system in his car. Maybe even in his living room. So, XP will be forced to migrate to what?
This game is over Ballmer. You can scream, kick, dance … in the end there will be only one and it isn’t 12 year leftovers!
“…there’s an estimated $32 billion service opportunity for [you] in moving users off XP,” said Visser proudly to the awed Microsoft Certfied Techicians, “Yes, and this entirely unnecessary expense will lead to even more revenue opportunities if you implement the migration strategy which our engineers have worked on tirelessly to remove even the smallest legacy benefit for the customer while maximizing the potential for ongoing business disruption,
and,” he continued as the Microsoft Service
Tech’s erupted into applause, “unending billing opportunities as Microsoft moves to refresh our industry-leading position in hardware incompatibility through software and now…” pausing for dramatic effect, “through proprietary hardware engineered to the same design standard we’ve worked so hard to achieve in our software.”
My company only moved to Win7 because XP licenses were no longer available.
No biggie since Win7 is easier on the eye and has a few more features. I wouldn’t be happy to be forced to use Win8 though.
MDN continues its tasteless attacks against Microsoft, still fighting the last century’s wars, when it is Google, Samsung, and Facebook that are the real enemies of Apple. These companies are not out to complete, but instead base their businesses on thievery, copying, and deceit. Microsoft, in its present weakened state, is actually trying original ideas in a last-ditch effort to complete. XP is, was, and ever shall be one of the high points of Microsoft’s history. Just as Mac OS X 10.6 remains a very high point in the Mac’s history, still far and away the best Mac OS available.
When all versions of Mac OS X break a 20% market share, do please let us know. The sad reality is that the majority of computer buyers know and like Windows XP and Windows 7. It remains a complete mystery why Apple sat on its ass instead of mounting a very compelling “Switch to OS X” ad campaign while MS was trotting out its horrid Windows 8. Too late. Maverick is late, and Windows 8.1 is here to smooth over some of the ruffled feathers that 8.0 messed up. End result: Apple’s Mac continues to grow at a steady pace, but since its starting from such a low percentage, it’s going to be many years before the Mac OS has the same number of developers as Windows.
Yes, market share does matter, and no amount of pathetic attacking Microsoft’s inferior operating system will change the reality that Windows is still winning the desktop OS war.
Winning? By what measurement? You do realize that Apple’s iPhone ALONE makes more money than ALL of Microsloth?
And if you say you want to divide off and only look at the desktop, that is simply not valid in any business sense that matters. So what if MS have a larger percentage of the market in one particular product sector? Businesses succeed or fail on their total profitability, not on the market share of one product.
I stated “Windows is still winning the desktop OS war”. Nowhere did I compare total company profits. Don’t change the subject.
By reading only MDN, one would easily miss the fact that Windows has more developers, more software titles, more compatible hardware options, and significantly more capable enterprise and large-scale systems networking offerings. You will never see Apple mentioned in the same sentence with Sage, Oracle, Epicor, or SAP. Databases and CRM are almost all built on MS platforms. Windows, for all its faults, remains the bigger, stronger, more industrially dominant computing platform, with much greater TOTAL industry profits — not just those profits captured by MS.
There’s nothing revolutionary in OS X 10.9 that hints of any reason that any business owner would convert his company to a Mac-centric platform. That’s a shame. Cook and Company continue to IGNORE enterprise users and spend the vast majority of their time polishing iOS, which obviously is the low-effort, high ROI consumer product that currently allows Apple to get fat dumb and happy while the competition swarms.
If you think that Apple is a more secure investment because its ad-laden mobile software and disposable portable hardware currently sell well in the USA and western Europe, the market seems not to agree. Wall St. has discounted Apple’s stock price because Apple shows every indication of being unable to maintain its past decade of phenomenal growth. Samsung and Lenovo are growing faster. It’s not that Apple doesn’t offer superior products, it’s that Apple doesn’t actually compete at all in most regions and most product markets. Unless Apple comes up with something new that appeals to more than just the hipsters and teeny boppers, it too will become an also-ran. Apple can’t continue to ignore serving the difficult markets. Apple’s cloud is a failure, and it has to offer businesses and productivity users some reason to choose the Mac over the current entrenched professional’s Windows computer.
Can you imagine what would happen if Ford or Chevy announced that they would no longer support or fix your 2003 or older car????
“Brakes wore out? Sorry sir you just have to buy a new one… please submit a check for $40,000….”
bad metaphor. Automakers DO NOT support decade-old cars with newly designed parts or software. Sure, you can go to the dealer and buy a part that was designed a decade ago, but if that part had a design flaw, it still has the design flaw. Nobody makes the automaker fix problems after the sale unless it is safety related, in which case your big bad government acts on behalf of the public to force product recalls.
Manufacturers won’t — and shouldn’t be required to — update products that have been out of production for more than a decade.
Apple is absolutely no more supportive than any other software maker about supporting old versions of their products. In fact, Apple is often worse, forcing obsolescence and incompatibility without technical reasons to do so.