Microsoft gets Desperate to sell Vista. Will offer XP for free
Vista, the operating system that took MS hell lot of time to launch doesn’t seem to be doing so great.
Steve Ballmer has now announced that Vista users will get XP too, so that if they don’t like Vista, they can switch to XP.
"Customers get both," said Ballmer…if you don’t like it, you can turn it into Windows XP.’ – source
So, even though XP’s support is supposed to end by June 30th, customers can still get a fresh copy of XP by buying Vista (and then click on the Downgrade to XP button!).
How cool is that?
I, somehow find this sales strategy quite funny and is simply a sign of desperation (esp. for Ballmer, as nothing is going right ever since he took the charge)
To add icing to the chaotic cake,another OS version will be launched by late 2009!
So, as a developer you will have to worry about 3 OS’s and combine that with different versions of IE.
What’s your reaction?
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About the author - Ashish Sinha is a Startup Mentor/Product Strategy Coach, and the founder/chief editor of pluGGd.in.
He has launched/managed couple of products (consumer as well as enterprise) in US and India, and now consults with startups/small businesses on their product/media strategy. He can be reached at: ashish (at) pluGGd.in [+91 98452 06443]
Microsoft is increasingly becoming irrelevant. We standardized on Ubuntu as desktop OS on all our development as well as server machines and we have been more productive than ever. Combined with the excellent support for web application development, there’s no way we’re going back to the windows world.
cheers
nilesh
I am not getting why M$ is investing heavly in OS, as it does not make sense. Instead they can divert those investment to Web Tech and Grid and Cloud Computing, bringing more innovation in DB area.
Most ppl are contented with XP and server 2003.
Even if they develop new OS every 2 year they should make sure that the new OS shd fit in to existing hardware config, ppl dont want to upgrade the hardware because of new OS.
The Web Revolution made lot of ppl to shift to Linux, cuz everything is available on net if OS lacks some feature.
One more thing is that sitll WinZip, WinRar and Winamp still rocks despite OS.
AFAIK, downgrade only applies to business/ultimate edition. My new laptop came vista home preloaded and I could not upgarde it to XP (I know I said upgrade, vista sucks, at least for me).
@Yusuf
This offer, as far as I know will be rolled out in another few days..first with US and then other geographies..
MS would still want custoemrs to purchase XP and then Vista!
Vista
1. came so late
2. alien UI (wrt XP) .. ribbons in office 07!!. could use it progressively.
3. backward compatibility issues.
4. people didn like it.
5. at least one good decision at end (downgrade!!) with wrong punchline …(if you don’t like vista ….)
Instead of fighting against all odds mentioned above (Hardware, switching cost(learning new UI etc), speed, compatibility) one good decision i think would have been to ship thnigs one by one… i would have shipped free Vista Games first.. then other small applications, a small patch on office(to get them introduced to interface) and other things likwise.. to test our prduct design and other things…
… MS designers and managers mus be more intellignt than I’m. Why do i get this feeling?..
may be because I’m the consumer. The one who matters most at the end. Why they don’t care about me at the first hand.
…
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