[NYTr] Dell Customers Reject Vista, Demand Windows XP Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2007 21:50:46 -0500 (CDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Playfuls.com - Apr 20, 2007 http://www.playfuls.com/news_07070_Dell_Resurrects_Windows_XP.html Dell Resurrects Windows XP by Alex Radulescu Due to the customers demand, Dell will offer again Windows XP as an option on some of its consumer PCs. The announcement was made on Dell?s Idea Storm website, where consumers are invited to post their opinions. In February, Dell has launched two new ways for customers to share ideas and experiences directly with their peers and the company. Dell IdeaStorm and StudioDell were announced during a presentation by Dell Chairman and CEO Michael Dell at a statewide education summit in Texas. Soon after the launch the most popular idea on IdeaStorm the consumers said they want computers preloaded with Linux and other open source solutions. And now they want Windows XP resurrected. The "Don't eliminate XP just yet" post managed to obtain close 12308 points and Dell responded with a brief statement. "We heard you loud and clear on bringing the Windows XP option back to our Dell consumer PC offerings," Dell said in a Web posting Thursday. Starting immediately, Dell said, it is adding XP Home and Professional as options on four Inspiron laptop models and two Dimension desktops. As many other computer makers, Dell stopped to offer Windows XP on its computers after Microsoft launched Windows Vista for consumers in January this year. was also a key factor as consumer shipments declined rapidly while commercial volume was more stable. According to AP, Microsoft countered that Dell's move was in response to a "small minority of customers" with a "specific request." Michael Burk, a product manager for Microsoft's Windows Client group, said in an e-mailed statement, "The vast majority of consumers want the latest and greatest technology, and that includes Windows Vista." In January 2007, Microsoft announced the addition of an Extended Support phase for the Windows XP Home Edition and Windows XP Media Center Edition operating systems, providing consumers with an additional phase of support. With the addition of Extended Support, the support life cycle for Windows XP Home Edition and Windows XP Media Center Edition will include a total of five years of Mainstream Support (until April 2009) and five years of Extended Support, matching the support policy provided for Windows XP Professional. The Microsoft Support Lifecycle policy standardizes Microsoft product support policies for business and developer products as well as for consumer, hardware, multimedia and Microsoft Dynamics products. Previously, all support for Windows XP Home was slated to end two years after the release of Vista, in other words, at the end of January 2009. Windows XP debuted in October 2001. According to the last IDC?s report about PC market, Dell continued to struggle with a slow U.S. market and internal restructuring. A focus on the slower growing commercial market and a strategy of not chasing share at the expense of profitability while facing aggressive competition from HP and other competitors has reduced growth dramatically. Similar to the fourth quarter, Dell shipments declined by more than 14% in the United States and grew by just over 1% internationally. As a result, overall shipments declined by 6.9% year on year and international shipments rose to 52% of volume. Although Dell's Portable business saw healthy growth internationally, domestic sales were down. *** BBC News - Apr 20, 2007 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6575089.stm Users force Dell to resurrect XP Responding to customer demand Dell has restarted selling new PCs with Windows XP installed on them. The decision reverses a policy begun in January that meant Windows Vista was the only operating system available on almost all new home machines. The change came after Dell's feedback site was swamped with calls for the return of the venerable software. Now customers can opt for the Home or Professional version of XP on six models of Dell machines. Customer clamour The four consumer versions of Windows Vista went on sale on 30 January and since then many PC makers have sold most of their machines with the software pre-loaded. Since January Dell has been gradually phasing out the XP option on new PCs. By March Dell only sold two models in its extensive range with the XP operating system installed. Dell is currently the second-largest PC seller in the world and has a 15.2% share of the overall PC market. Dell changed the policy in response to pleas posted on its Ideastorm website which invites customers to post suggestions about how the PC maker can meet their needs. The suggestion saying "Don't eliminate XP just yet" got almost 11,000 votes. In response Dell said it would offer the operating system on four models of Inspiron notebooks and two Dimension desktop PCs. "This is really odd," said Michael Silver, research vice president at analysts Gartner. "On new PCs, consumers usually do want the latest and greatest." Other analysts speculated that the reason consumers were keen on XP was because it was familiar and it worked well with many of the digital peripherals they owned. In response Microsoft said that Dell was responding to a "small minority" of customers who had a very "specific" request. It is not clear how long Dell will be able to keep its offer to install XP going. From the end of January 2008 PC makers will no longer be able to buy new licences for the operating system. *** Wired - Apr 20, 2007 http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/04/dell_reinstates.html Dell Reinstates Windows XP As New PC Option Dell_fire_2 Dell, beaten to a pulp by the stick of public demand, is reinstating Windows XP as an option on new PCs, reversing a January decision to shift entirely to Vista. You can now grab Home or Professional XP from the bullet points on their configurator, which has for the last three months been a giant ad for their competitors, as far as PC owners unwilling to deal with Vista's quirks are concerned. Why would Dell take action that Microsoft would rather it not take? The magic line, "Dell is currently the second-largest PC seller in the world" is why: the top spot was recently nabbed by HP, which, as of today, still foists compulsory Vista on us, at least when buying from their online store. Remember that Microsoft plans to retire XP in only eight months. The brass balls required to kill off your most popular product to force people to buy its sequel speaks to a breathtaking degree of market control, and that they don't have any fear whatsoever of OSX or Linux. As a crude but, I hope, effective analogy, could you imagine Sony taking the PS2 off the shelves to "force" people to buy PlayStation3? The BBC has a great quote in its story, wherein a Gartner analyst wonders why people would prefer XP over Vista. Talk about the ivory tower... * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================