[Am-info] Microsoft abandons older Windows

[John J. Urbaniak]

Roy Bixler wrote:

> On Tue, Dec 16, 2003 at 11:12:26AM -0500, Erick Andrews quotes:
> > "Thousands of companies and individuals could face security
> >  headaches and inconvenience as Microsoft stops selling some
> >  of its older products.
> >
> > "It has announced it is withdrawing products such as Windows
> >  98, Windows NT 4 and Outlook 2000.
> >
> > "The decision was made because the programs contain code
> >  outlawed under a legal deal with rival Sun Microsystems.
>
> That seems to me like it's removing support sooner than Microsoft
> ordinarily does.  On the other hand, do you really buy their
> explanation?  It seems to me equally plausible that a good part of (if
> not all of) the reason is that Microsoft wants to give further
> incentive to "encourage laggards to upgrade."
>

Well, Gartner Group is saying that "Longhorn" isn't likely to be out until
2008 or 2009.  So the greedy bastards at Microsoft will have to come up
with some kind of revenue producer.  Like forcing users to "upgrade" from
one form of their junk to another.

John