Wednesday 8 April 2009

Microsoft will allow Windows 7 users to downgrade to XP

Mary-Jo with ZDNet drops this bombshell:

Microsoft will allow Windows 7 users to downgrade to XP

Is this punch drunk love, an understanding we are moving in to a post OS world, or a confession that the product may not only be poor but may, if this is possible, be worse that Windows Vista.

Frankly this is one of those things that you know about and talk about but before blogs could not write about to prove to people on job interviews. In 2003 as Microsoft was having trouble getting XP to be taken on from Window 2000 I told "VERBALLY" most of my contacts in the field that Microsoft had reached a Linux point with Windows 2000: it was stable enough, easy to use enough, and well understood enough that it would find Windows upgrades harder and harder and have to look for new sources of revenue.

Okay I also said in 2004 that "Facebook" at Harvard was a silly idea that was entering a crowded field, and I said this to someone who was in a position to pass it on the Zuckerman at Harvard so I am not claiming any deep insight here. But the trouble Microsoft had converting Windows 2000 users to XP showed a deep fault with the strategy of "addict them to trash and improve it just enough in each release."

Now I might be getting myself in to trouble on this but I think it has carried out this strategy with SharePoint.