Wednesday, May 11, 2005

MS Windows XP Commercials

Is it just me or does it seem crazy that Microsoft is running a TV ad campaign aimed at home users to get them to use Windows XP?

Several thoughts come to mind:

1) XP is a 3.5 year old OS released around October of 2001 - why market something that archaic in the computer industry?
2) "IDC estimates that of the roughly 514 mln paid-for copies of Windows on desktops and laptops worldwide at the end of 2004, almost 21% were the aging Win 95, 98 and Millennium Edition releases." (link) I guess it's possible that they would like to get those people upgraded.
3) Feeling pressure from Mac OS and *nix systems being installed and gaining market share. "5% of all PCs in 2004 shipped with Linux"

Just my random thoughts before I leave work for the day...

1 comment:

Greg said...

No....I think the main reason Microsoft is finally pushing XP is because they almost have it working and secure. Notice I said ALMOST. As you well know, there are some companies still on W2K because of historical uncomfortability with XP.

Also, don't forget to check out the story about IE losing even more market share:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050513/ap_on_hi_te/microsoft_browser_market

Notice, that even though there were significant security holes ID'ed with Firefox this past week, a fix was posted yesterday! The status quo has shifted and Microsoft doesn't know what to do...