[IWE] 'A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection'

[Wade Bowmer]

On Sun, 18 Feb 2007 00:14:22 +1100, Sven Coenye <scoenye@compaqnet.be>  
wrote:

>> So the head of IT has set a date to look at rolling Vista out to the   
>> desktops. January 2008. I strongly suspect a date was chosen to  
>> forestall  questions and early jumpers. It also lets us tell others who  
>> have no need  to upgrade that they need only wait. But new, general  
>> purpose PCs in the  meantime will be XP. Not Vista. We know how to do  
>> XP.
> When have an external M$ licensing compliance manager. He has let us  
> know that MS has set the vanishing date for XP OEM licenses at 15 March.
>
> As downgrading an OEM Vista license is not allowed, if the above is  
> true, that means you'll have to pay big bucks to keep Vista out. (We're  
> still on W2K and have no desire whatsoever to see Vista at all, but I  
> think we're fscked on this one.)

They won't be able to stick to that. It's far too soon. Too many  
corporates will ask and ask and ask and ask and ask and ask and ask until  
Microsoft caves in and allows new XP licenses again. I'm sure this has  
happened before with previous versions of Windows. As much as Microsoft  
want to push people to The Latest And Greatest (!), a substantial  
proportion just will not be pushed that fast.

Wade.