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This is ridiculous. Microsoft needs to wake up right now, or a future PCworld article will be titled: How Vista and Arrogance Killed Microsoft.

I will Never move my company to Vista. I've been an avid supporter of Windows NT since setting up a Domain in version 3.1 (yes, there was a Windows NT 3.1). Now, if Microsoft actually fails to support XP before rolling out an acceptable replacement for Vista, I will bite the bullet and move to Ubuntu, enterprise-wide.

We're getting close to where switching entirely from Microsoft has an attractive ROI.

Vista inevitable? FAR from it!

I think Microsoft should be slapped with a class action lawsuit.
The fact that they are forcing every user , corporate or personal to switch to Vista or higher and spend allot of time and $$$ is insane when there is nothing wrong with XP and XP pro. They finely got it right and now here we go again. After they actually gain back the trust of most people who went through the horror of, dear I say it (M E). Vista basically is an absolute nightmare with most hardware. Since it arrived we are now faced with paying more money on a PC that barely supports it without upgrading the system you just bought. What is wrong with this picture?? I put up with it because like most people I got sucked in thinking it is the way to go.Personally I think it is time to start thinking about migrating to Mac.They have been very patient with there product knowing this day would come.When they looked doomed years ago they kept there head above water and kept trying.My hat is off to them.

You two kill me. MS has every right to stop supporting a product of theirs. They also are a corporation dedicated to making money. If you don't like their new products, don;t buy. if they stop supporting the product you are using, which they are entitled to do, then switch to something else.
Sicne when has the american dream morphed into: whine now and sue later?

As someone working in the IT branch outside the U.S. this is viewed by me as a worst-case scenario that caught the industry by surprise, because of the relatively small time frame between the launch and adaptation of Vista and the termination of XP support. This was not the case with 2000 Pro and XP as XP was available shortly after 2000 Pro had been out and the cost of an upgrade was relatively lower than from XP to Vista. In a developing country, where the majority of businesses are just now focusing on software licensing compliance, this becomes a nightmare very fast. At this stage more time and money is lost by trying to estimate what the impact of an alternative (ubuntu linux) will be for small to medium businesses. I personally am convinced that the consumers will eventually quit complaining about Vista because it's not bad (and yes, linux also has an annoying prompt that asks for a password for just about every major action but can be turned off just like in windows.

Ben is merely doing his job, helping marketing leaders at Microsoft by portraying himself as a technology leader.
The reality is that Ben is probably not too informed on what it takes to support a poor offering like Vista in the enterprise. He doesn't know how long and hard it is to get 3rd party software and hardware vendor adoption.
Ben's research should have taken him back a few years. It wan't too long ago when companies clung long an hard to Windows 98 before finally making the jump to XP.
Ben's research failed to include the existing license agreement that will allow businesses to downgrade.
He also missed wonderful advancements in virtualization, where the only drivers I need for XP will come from VMWare or Apple's bootcamp project.
What is the current Windows solution for the corporate desktop: Windows 2003 and 2008 Server - Terminal Server whenever possible.
Hopefully, Microsoft won't shoot themselves in the foot again.
Forgive the typos, I wrote this on my iPhone.

If MS is dedicated to making money, then your "if you don't like it, don't buy it" shows how stupid their current position is. That's the point. I won't buy it. I personally replaced UNIX workstations and Mac desktops in 1993 with Windows NT 3.1 and I am a Microsoft Certified Instructor in their Server products. I've implemented and supported every release of MS Server and Desktop OS since then. Your juvenile defense of what Microsoft is "entitled to do" will do nothing to keep Microsoft from going down the tubes. What are they going to do when their fiercest defenders (which I have consistently been and hope to be in the future) are ready to scrap them and switch to Ubuntu or to Leopard?

By the way, how is it "whining" to point out the truth: that a company that has produced a string of great products for 15 years, and now brings out a complete dog (let me define dog for you: half as fast, needs twice as much memory, and has poor driver support) and on top of that stops selling or supporting the only desktop OS they make that actually works...how is it "whining" to point out they're being foolish and arrogant?

Ben says XP is unattractive. That's only because Microsoft is making it unattractive by making it unavailable. Other than that, there's nothing wrong with XP. If my XP fails, I should not have to pay the price of a high-powered Vista computer. That's in addition to the fact that many people have had bad experiences with Vista. It's time for another company to make a competitive alternative OS. What an opportunity!

Microsoft has sure been spending a lot of money to get "researchers" to talk about Vista's "inevitability" lately. Imagine so messing up your core business that you have to rely on intimidation to get people to adopt your product?

"It will become more difficult to stick with Windows XP when top-tier computer makers pull it off their operating system lists on June 30, the date Microsoft has mandated that manufacturers stop offering it on new PCs. The company will also yank XP from retail sales then."
This statement is just not true
XP will be available for OEMS until 2009
Most OEM's have already stated they will be using the M$ downgrade rights to keep selling PC's with XP on them well after June 30th.
Anyone who still want's to sell a PC to a corporate environment will do the same, no one in their right mind is deploying Vista in the field.

You should stop knocking Vista. After all, it is everything Apple could have hoped for.

Ben isn't a very good analyst since he seems to be unaware that most corporations buy new computers and then install XP Pro under the auspices of their Volume License. The only people Microsoft will be hurting by pulling XP are the retail computer buyers. But then, Microsoft has shown their disdain for the average home user by only allowing downgrade rights for Vista Business and Ultimate, leaving the owners of Home Basic and Home Premium to twist slowly in the wind. Their arrogance will ultimately be their downfall.

I work for a multinational industrial company which employs fifty thousand people in the U.S, alone. We just updated our networked workstations to XP SP2 (from SP1) about a year ago because of incompatibilities with some of our older proprietary software, so for Mr Keizer to say that upgrading to Vista is inevitable shows a great degree of cluelessness on his part, of how real businesses work. We have a lot of proprietary software which won't run under Vista, and even more very expensive hardware (various lab analyzers, SEMs, etc), some of which still run Windows98 because the hardware doesn't support Windows XP. If either Microsoft, or the article's author thinks that it's feasible for a company such as this to lay out many millions of dollars for software and hardware upgrades just to run Vista, they're sadly mistaken. The software for the types of scientific equipment that we use are often one to two operating systems behind the latest and greatest that Microsoft tries to ram down our throats, because they use very expensive proprietary software that can't be upgraded at Microsoft's whim.

Microsoft had a good 20 year run, but their arrogance will be there downfall. They just lost Yahoo because of the way Steve Ballmer approched the whole deal from the begining. They are loosing the battle with windows vista because they want to force individuals and corporations to cuff up huge amounts of money to be able to run vista, and now they are turning xp support off, once again in their arrogance because they want everyone to do what Microsoft wants. It will take some more time I say between 7 to 10 years for them to lose a severe market share just because right now yes it is easy to find good application that work with windows and not so many that work with linux. If Ubuntu gets better application support and greater programing of applications for this operating system it will gain market share quicker. I wouldn't be supprise if Microsoft is begin Analyst to write good things about Vista in light of all the problems, it is wear but reports pushing vista are from analyst.

"Inevitable???" What a load of hooey! Has this "analyst" even thought about the cost to the business world, state and federal governments, educational institutions and the rest of the user community? Hardware upgrades, software upgrades, endless downtime...installing, reconfiguring, downloading patches...etc...etc...
It's time to WAKE UP EVERYONE!
Yes...I AM a MAC user...made the switch a year ago. No problems with my "propietary" hardware - works flawlessly. Operating system has NEVER crashed.
I did call tech support once...with a question about USB port configurations. Quick, knowledgeable, polite, easy to understand. EXCELLENT service!
I use my MAC everyday for offsite report writing and communication with my Windows based company. Even use Office for the MAC but recently changed to IWork 08 and have NEVER had a file compatibility issue.
There IS a better way to work...Microsoft lost me with a terrible experience with Vista. Many of my colleagues too...

I agree...and i thank you for posting your opinion...which is most of the pc worlds anyway.

Some of you guys are hilarious with your cute little comments.

Some of you actually believe you are entitled to "something". As was already mentioned, if you don't like the way MS is running their business then SWITCH. But we all know what wont happen WHICH IS WHY some of you whine like babies about it. The hard cold truth is that Linux CAN NOT give you what you "want" either yet alone what you "need".

Either way, NO ONE is being forced to switch and NO ONE is going to get punished for not switching. If Windows 7 is worse then Vista then by all means upgrade to Vista then. At least drivers will be stronger. As well, who is forcing you to switch? Do any of you have any clue as to how long people continued to use NT4 for YEARS after it's EOL? You can keep using XP all you want. There wont be any security fixes however, your CLIENTS shouldn't be relying on those anyway you naughty IT admins!!!!

I continue to enjoy the way "analysts" and "columnists" know so little about the industry or alternatives in hardware and software. There are alternatives to a Vista upgrade. MacOS has its own version of MS Office that's fully compatable with the Windows side. Intel Macs will run XP and has all the driver support needed. Linux has all the fuctionality of Windows offerings in document creation, multimedia, and scientific work. MS has been at the top of the business heap with little or no competition for many years. Now they offer an operating system full of flaws (and don't mention SP1 because it does fix problems or speed issues) and wonder why business hasn't climbed on board. MS needs to wake up and smell the coffee. Business has other choices and unless MS comes to realize that, they'll miss the boat.

I think I won't shed any tears if MS loses its dominant position in the industry. It's about time they were humbled.

JEmlay like Microsoft you will soon have to face reality. When I buy a new dell I am forced to buy windows. People aren't using windows vista by choice, they are using it because Bill Gates is a great businessman. Most people are forced to use these crap products because businesses run more efficiently when everyone is using the same software / same format for documents. So if there was an open choice, then why the hell would anyone want windows vista? No one wants it, it's junk, and the only reason people use it is because they are forced into it when they bought a computer. Windows is like high gas prices, it sucks, but, you do have to drive to work... you can't just quit and not use your car (or in this case windows).

You can order a Dell with XP pro, Home, Ubuntu or Free DOS right off their website