XP Extended Life Confirms the Soft Underbelly

Well now it looks like Windows XP will not meet its doom until at least June 30 next year. Microsoft, which had planned to kill off XP in January 2008 has apparently changed its plans due to the slow uptake of Windows Vista -- something that is hardly surprising given the feedback I've been getting from Network World readers.

Mike Nash, corporate vice president of Windows Product Management, is quoted on Ars Technica as saying "Maybe we were a little ambitious to think that we would need to make Windows XP available for only a year after the release of Windows Vista." Do you think so Mike?

I keep wondering where we'd be had Microsoft not had such hubris to think they could foist a (sort of) new operating system with all sorts of unnecessary chrome, bells, and whistles on the world and instead invested time and money in fixing and improving XP?

This points up a serious problem of the 21st century commercial computing complex: The endless upgrade mania. The majority of software vendors see upgrades as a way of generating revenue and despite the fact that those upgrades add little or nothing to the product's functionality they are in a position to "recommend" the upgrades and, using all of the marketing tricks at their command, make it difficult if not impossible for users to stick at a version they are comfortable with. Nope, make ‘em upgrade and make ‘em pay.

This is also a key issue of the soft underbelly of the commercial computing complex that consumers are mostly unaware of (see this week's Backspin). What it amounts to is a vast and unspoken conspiracy that makes all other market fixing in the computer business pale into insignificance.