HP to Microsoft: We're creating a gray market for Windows XP whether you like it or not
It's an internet fact that Microsoft fudges its Vista sales stats, but here's the sharp end of the stick: HP openly admitting that it inflates the headcount. By selling license for Vista but actually pre-installing XP on new computers, it dodges Microsoft's efforts to prevent it selling the older software even as it helps fluff the numbers.
Jane Bradburn of HP's Australian subsidiary told APC that its customers want XP, so that's what they get.
"From the 30th of June, we have no longer been able to ship a PC with a XP licence ... However, what we have been able to do with Microsoft is ship PCs with a Vista Business licence but with XP pre-loaded. That is still the majority of business computers we are selling today."
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I think Lenovo too is marketing some machines with "Vista licence, XP downgrade".
It's interesting to see MS starting to make noises about introducing a trimmed-down operating system next time around, rather than one trying to bundle so much. Combination of pushback on Vista and fear of Linux and realization that trying to compete against your application vendors is not a way to win friends, perhaps. Or maybe it's just the software equivalent of what Detroit is going through, realizing that customers are no longer as interested in a luxury stretch SUV and want something they can actually drive and maintain...
You had me confused for half a sentence there: you never specified what "latter" and "former" refer to. Giving a German a hard time struggling to find out whether he's too stupid to understand or you simply omitted the list :)
But I must admit I'm curious whether the same will happen with Vista and Windows 7 once it's released. Will people all of the sudden admit that they can work with Vista (in view Microsoft's new monsterchild)?
@technogeek Yes, our new Lenovo ThinkCentre M57s at work came with XP preinstalled (which we wipe and install fresh anyway) but with a Vista Business license sticker on the side.
I got 2 computers in the last month. The Lenovo came with the XP downgrade preinstalled (and a Vista Business sticker on the side).
My HP 2133 Mininote came with Vista Business, but HP is sending me the downgrade disks.
But actually, for all the moaning about performance on the boards, so far Vista has been ok even on this underpowered little box. I'm not running anything fancy beyond OpenOffice and Firefox, but I might not even bother downgrading if the performance continues to be acceptable. We'll see...
Oddly Dell allow all this as well, but they are a lot more oblique about it - and as a result after a decade of buying only Dell I poked around and ended up elsewhere.
Sorry for the crappy sentence, there, Garr -- I'd rewritten part of paragraph without properly proofing the rest.
Fixed now!
It's funny, I don't remember all this uproar when XP came out. Obviously MS got something seriously wrong this time.
RE: #6,
well, ME was such a stinker, it was kinda treated like the kids in The People Under the Stairs, and XP managed to actually work. Now we have Vista, which is pretty much a bucket of headaches. I just upgraded my computer and decided to stick with XP, to avoid the crap my wife deals with on her new Vista laptop. So far, i've got no complaints. I'm running like a champ.
-T
> But actually, for all the moaning about performance on the boards, so far Vista has been ok even on this underpowered little box
Really? My gf has a neat little Toshiba laptop, with a decent CPU and 1GB of memory. Vista is a dog. Seriously, it's slow and crappy and headache inducing. This is with Aero off (won't even turn on) and all the other crap reduced to a minimum. It just doesn't run on 1GB. I wouldn't even call this machine underpowered, because it runs XP wonderfully, as expected.