One of the things you have to love about Microsoft is the sheer ruthlessness of it’s business model. Bigger and ever more bloated versions of its software are unloaded on the world at regular intervals, then agonizingly promoted through some of the most mediocre advertising around (Thank you, McCann Erickson, San Francisco)
But now, after a barrage of complaints, Dell is to once again offer Windows XP on new systems, responding to angry online customers. This reverses a Vista-only policy Dell moved to since the release of Microsoft's latest 800 pound gorilla of an operating system. Friends of mine have told me it’s a memory hog, needed at least 2 MB of memory to run at reasonable speeds.
The most popular Vista-phobic post and the one that got the company's attention is "Don’t eliminate XP just yet" which received lots of support through comment “points.” I don’t understand how that works, but it does mean a lot of people responded to this particular post, or some lunatic with nothing better to do, responded a lot.
Meanwhile, Microsoft in its usual fashion is saying nothing in the hope it will all just go away… Which it will in a few months, as manufacturers will only be able to pre-install XP on systems until Jan. 31, 2008 when Microsoft will force them to switch to Vista no matter what customers ask for. I believe that’s what Microsoft calls “Freedom of choice!”
George Parker
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Member since: 03 Jun 2008
Last login: 17 Nov 2009
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