The IT Nerd

I wasn’t surprised when I saw this ChannelWeb story on XP being allowed to live beyond January 31, 2009. How they’re doing it is quite interesting:

In an e-mail to ChannelWeb, a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed the existence of a flexible inventory program that will allow distributors to place their final orders for Windows XP OEM licenses by Jan. 31, 2009, and take delivery against those orders through May 30.

Previously, distributors had planned to purchase as many XP licenses as they could afford before Jan. 31, 2009, and sell them after the deadline. But once that inventory was gone, they’d have no choice but to turn away XP-seeking customers.

Distributors have until Dec. 31 to submit their XP license demand forecasts to Microsoft, and system builders are reportedly being asked to provide their own forecasts to distributors.

After that, Microsoft hopes to close the book on XP forever and force Vista down your throat. But I’d be willing to bet that another stay of execution will be issued if Vista’s rate of adoption doesn’t pick up.

This entry was posted on December 22, 2008 at 9:30 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Microsoft. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.