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Microsoft Bails Out The PC Market | |
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||
| Time: 11:25 EST/16:25 GMT | News Source: Forbes.com | Posted By: Robert Stein | ||
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This summer, millions of businesspeople will be upgraded against their will. And no, we don't mean their flight plans. Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) will officially end technical support for Windows 98 and Windows NT 4 on June 30. The financial implications for Microsoft and others could be significant, even in the short term. | ||
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| #1 By 20 (24.243.41.64) at 1/7/2003 11:29:42 AM |
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lol, it's not like the OSes are just going to fall off their harddrives.
But seriously, can anyone expect MS to support all their products all the time forever? |
| #2 By 20 (24.243.41.64) at 1/7/2003 11:54:02 AM |
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The line is where MS can provide reasonable support, but not so much that it costs so much that prices must be raised.
Also, there is the function of average life-span of the product. It is unreasonable to expect that a company would offer support for a product that is past a reasonable life-span of that product. I'm not sure what the average life-span of the OS is, but I seem to recall the average life-span of a PC is about 2 years. So the fact that Windows NT 4.0 has seen 9 years of support, and Windows 98 4-5 years is pretty good, IMHO |
| #3 By 6859 (204.71.100.217) at 1/7/2003 12:02:09 PM |
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Enough with the OS vs. Car analogy. That argumentation is so terribly flawed as to be useless.
It's all about end of life expectation. OSes have an EOL of roughly 5 years (in reality), but MS supports them beyond that--it's like a warranty (just not in all ways.) Cars have, at best, a 10 year, or 100K mile whichever comes first. That means your 1998 would be supported until 2008 at the longest, but the average American drives between 12000 and 20000 miles per year, giving you a EOL of between 8.3 to 5 years. MS stops supporting NT after 8 years. You're getting a good deal. MS stops supporting Windows 98 in 5 years. You're still getting a good deal (in comparison to the car anaology). If you assume that every 18 months computers get 2x as powerful (Moore's Law), and apply that same logic to cars...(here we go)... Cars have been around in abundance only since 1910, that's 93 years. 93 years is 1116 months, which is 62 18-month periods of doubling in performance = 2,305,843,009,213,693,952 times more powerful. Got a car (even a new 2003) that's that powerful or economical, or just plain "cooler"? I bet not. Therefore, cars by comparison are a bad deal. The lists go on and on. In short, car vs. pc or OS analogy = fubar. |
| #4 By 20 (24.243.41.64) at 1/7/2003 1:03:42 PM |
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#8: if it isn't obvious to you by now, allow me to enlighten you. FUD is one of those people that thinks MS can do no right. Regardless of reasonability, existing precedents, or common logic and facts, he will hate anything and everything MS does.
daz: <fact> FUD: *mumble mumble* bah, MS sucks Cthulu: <fact> FUD: *mumble mumble* bah, MS sucks kevinu: <fact> FUD: *mumble mumble* bah, MS sucks |
| #5 By 20 (24.243.41.64) at 1/7/2003 2:49:15 PM |
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I wouldn't say they hate their customers. I think that they take advantage of them.
Irresponsible is true, though. They have chosen a poor business model and find that the only way to make money is to exploit the good will of their customers and ride the wave of popularity of Linux to profits. |
| #6 By 931 (66.156.3.195) at 1/8/2003 2:00:08 AM |
| as I recall nt.4.0 was release about august of 1996 so for the record it would be just under 7 years... Though I belive that is about correct for an OS.. However I have feeling ms will not support win2k for 7, infact I think they've stated EOL for win2k is 2005. I think 5 years is about the mininium one should expect for a major os release. These linux based companies that are killing off support after a year.. just horid... and they wonder why I dont want to trust most my datacenter to them??? |
| #7 By 1845 (12.209.152.69) at 1/8/2003 3:51:18 AM |
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Knight, just FYI Windows 2000 Professional is scheduled for EOL on March 31, 2008.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/desktop/business/default.mspx |
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