Windows XP Losing Support in 1,000 Days, Microsoft Warns -- Redmondmag.com

Windows XP Losing Support in 1,000 Days, Microsoft Warns

By Scott Bekker
07/14/2011

A somber note of sorts hit the 2011 Worldwide Partner Conference as Microsoft executives alerted the crowd of Windows XP's impending end, at least in terms of lifecycle support.

"XP end of life is not that far off -- a thousand days to be exact," intoned Tami Reller, corporate vice president and CFO for Windows and Windows Live, during a WPC keynote on Monday.

Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner amplified the theme in his keynote on Wednesday, broadening it to include Office 2003 and Internet Explorer 6 in addition to Windows XP: "We love those products, but you know what? They're dead."

If Turner's remark was full of characteristic hyperbole, Reller's timeline wasn't fudged. The end of extended support falls on April 8, 2014, according to a Microsoft Windows lifecycle fact sheet. That's 1,000 days from Wednesday, according to an online date calculator.

Reller defined what end of life will mean for XP. "Ongoing standard support and software maintenance will not be a part of the Windows XP experience," she said.

While 2014 seems like a long way off, it's not so far off in terms of corporate desktop OS upgrade planning cycles. For the many organizations that skipped Windows Vista, it means they may need to commit to Windows 7 rather than waiting for Windows 8 if they want to stay current on support.

Meanwhile, Reller encouraged partners to urge their customers to migrate to Windows 7, which she said has sold 400 million copies so far. "[The end of extended support] can introduce material risk to a business. Together we must help our customers migrate more than 300 million desktops to a modern experience. You most certainly will play a critical role," Reller said.

In addition to applying the customer stick of fear, Reller held out the partner carrot of service revenues. "Numerically, we believe that well over 40 billion of services will be purchased by customers over the next several years as part of this move," Reller said.

About the Author

Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.

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