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

[Sven Coenye]

>
> > know that MS has set the vanishing date for XP OEM licenses at 15 March.
> >
>   
>
> 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.

They're sure doing their best to make it happen. I took a look at our PC 
provider's list today, and there are only three models with and XP 
option left and those are on the promo-get-them-out-of-here list.

When XP hit the ground, there was a long time where PCs came with a 
double license, and XP Pro could be downgraded to W2K Pro. From what I 
can see, there is no double licensing, and the downgrade option has been 
taken away. This is also the first time that they are really worrying 
about uptake as Vista is pretty much a bet-the-farm product.

I'm hoping you're right but given the arm twisting they applied to the 
hardware manufacturers they may yet opt to stick it to the customers now 
instead of tomorrow. (After all, even having the entire US Bar 
Association yelling at them did not induce them to fix Word's way of 
counting...)

Sven