Microsoft says to extend XP sales for five months
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Microsoft Corp.  said on  Thursday it plans to keep selling its Windows XP operating  system until the end of June 2008, delaying a scheduled  transition to its newer Windows Vista software by five months.
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Microsoft has announced it will introduce the Windows XP Starter Edition in India early next year. A stripped-down, low-cost version of Windows XP, the Starter Edition is meant to increase the penetration
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It&#39;s part of the company&#39;s effort to beat back Linux and piracy efforts in developing technology markets. Microsoft says it will offer a simplified and lower-priced version of Windows XP in Russia, matching
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Technology services firm Electronic Data Systems Corp. plans to seek a five-day extension for its quarterly report from the US Securities and Exchange commission, according to news reports Tuesday.
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Non-memory sale to go ahead next month
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Microsoft announced a major support upgrade, clearer road maps, and a new financing option for its Dynamics range of business applications on Wednesday.On the support side, Microsoft will offer five years of extended support beyond the five-year mainstream support period for its CRM (customer relationship management), ERP (enterprise resource planning), and retail management products.&quot;Ten years in this industry is quite a long time,&quot; said Kirill Tatarinov, a vice president in Microsoft&#39;s division that deals with business applications, who introduced the program during a keynote speech at Convergence 2007.The plan, called Business Ready Customer Care, means customers won&#39;t necessarily be forced to upgrade. The price of the support will vary according to what software the customer has.&quot;We don&#39;t want customers to upgrade on our timeline,&quot; said Barb Edson, senior marketing director for Microsoft&#39;s Dynamics products.Tatarinov said customers who still don&#39;t want to move to a new version of a Dynamics product can also buy custom support for older versions, which will extend support beyond 10 years.&quot;Should you choose to stay for whatever business or technical reason, we will support you,&quot; Tatarinov said.Microsoft has also extended its premier support service to Dynamics. The service includes 24-hour technical support and can accommodate on-site visits. Microsoft&#39;s Dynamics line includes the ERP programs AX, GP, NAV, and SL; its CRM application, and its Retail Management Solution products.In another announcement, Tatarinov said the company will release a new version of its Dynamics products every two years, with a feature or service pack every year or so. He also said Microsoft will publish documents that give a clear road map of its forthcoming products up to 18 months in advance.&quot;We are committing to effectively give you a statement of direction for every product we will be delivering,&quot; Tatarinov said.Microsoft hasn&#39;t hit the original deadlines it set for at least two software products in its Dynamics line. The company said on Tuesday that&#160;Dynamics NAV 6.0, one of its ERP applications for mid-size companies, won&#39;t be released until the middle of next year. Also,&#160;Dynamics CRM 4.0, code-named Titan, is now due by the end of the year but was originally scheduled for release in June or July.Tatarinov laid out Microsoft&#39;s roadmap for several Dynamics products. AX 5.0, which will include 500 new features such as VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) and instant messaging, will be released between April and June next year.Two other ERP products, SL 8.0 and GP 11, will be built on Microsoft&#39;s next release of its Office suite, called Office 14, Tatarinov said. Those products will ship within 90 days of Office 14, which is scheduled for release in 2009, he said. Roadmaps should be published soon for both of those products.NAV 6.0 and Entrepreneur 2008, an ERP application for small businesses, will come out in the second half of next year. Entrepreneur will be expanded globally for 2009, Tatarinov said.The newest version of C5, an ERP product used mostly in Denmark, will come out by the end of year.On the financing side, Microsoft is adding a new financing plan that lets customers make fixed, regular payments for software under its Total Solution Financing program. That program is now in 14 countries and will be expanded to others, Tatarinov said.Leasing terms range from 24 to 60 months, which should allow business more flexible money management, starting as low as &#8364;50 ($71) per month, Microsoft said.&#160;
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SAN FRANCISCO - Microsoft Corp. has pushed back automatic distribution of Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) to allow business users more time to instruct their machines to skip the update.
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InfoWorld - InfoWorld???s petition asking Microsoft not to discontinue Windows XP after June 30 has garnered more than 65,000 signatures since Jan. 14. And with those signatures have come thousands of reader comments that reveal why many IT organizations are up in arms about the June 30 deadline to retire XP.
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Microsoft is doubling the number of months that corporate customers can block automatic delivery of Windows XP Service Pack 2. The company on Tuesday altered its policy for preventing the automatic download
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft Corp. is recommending that all customers still running Windows XP SP1 immediately upgrade to Windows XP SP2, as the company's support for SP1 will end next week. The Microsoft Support Lifecycle Policy for Windows XP SP1 ends on Tuesday according toÂ a company Web page. Microsoft initially planned to end support for Windows XP SP1 on Sept. 17, 2006, two years after Windows XP SP2 was released. However, earlier this year, Microsoft shifted the final support date for XP SP1 to Oct. 10. Microsoft typically provides 12 months of support for service packs, but will extend that support period for products it thinks customers need extra help and time to install. For typical consumer products, Microsoft provides five years of mainstream support. Business customers and developers typically get 10 years of support -- five of mainstream support and five of what is called "extended" support. Microsoft expects to releaseÂ the next major upgrade to the Windows client OS, Windows Vista, to business customers next month, and to consumers in January 2007. Though the release has been delayed several times, the general consensus among analysts is that Microsoft will hit its latest release target for Vista.
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Nov. 10, 2004. Microsoft is extending the policy that currently protects some of its business customers from potential legal costs associated with intellectual-property disputes to all of its customers, including consumers.
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MICROSOFT has delayed automated distribution of a major security upgrade to its Windows XP Professional operating system, citing a desire to give companies more time to test it.
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After a nine-day postponement, Microsoft on Wednesday plans to start pushing out Windows XP Service Pack 2 to PCs running Windows XP Professional Edition.
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Â Microsoft Corp. is giving users more time to prepare for Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) by doubling the time a special registry key will prevent PCs from automatically downloading and installing the mammoth update.
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The company&#39;s automatic blocking tool for SP2 will only work until April 2005. After that, Microsoft will push its security update automatically to all XP customers.
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Microsoft Corp. said on Wednesday it  expects to sell twice as many copies of its new Vista PC  operating system in its first year on sale compared with the  launch of its last major upgrade, Windows XP, in 2001.
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Microsoft said that it expects Windows XP to make up a significantly larger part of sales in the coming year.