At the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) yesterday, Microsoft said it plans a campaign prompting the security benefits of Windows XP’s Service Pack (SP) 2 in October followed by a program touting the advantages of planned new technologies building on Windows XP, such as Windows Media Center.
SP2 features secure web browsing, e-mail and improved firewall, and is Microsoft’s answer to two and a half yeas of concerted worm attacks that have hammered Windows XP and other, legacy versions of Windows.
This marketing campaign is unexplored ground for Microsoft, a master of promoting new products which is this time channeling marketing dollars into a product that, by this fall, will be three years old.
However, Microsoft is in an awkward position: Windows XP can help Microsoft maintain client operating system revenues since the desktop replacement, codenamed Longhorn, is now destined for delivery in the first half of 2006, at the earliest.
That means Microsoft has nothing new to offer customers between then and now – Longhorn was due in 2005. Some analysts even expect Longhorn will ship in 2007.
Meanwhile, a potential market exists in converting the massive number of customers still using Windows 9.x operating systems to Windows XP. While Microsoft has sold 210 million copies of Windows XP, more than half of PCs in use today use older 9.x operating systems, such as Windows 98. Worse, many of the PCs running Windows 98 lack adequate hardware to run Windows XP.
Sales of Windows XP are largely restricted to OEM-installed versions with relatively few customers actually buying just the packaged product for installation on existing PCs.
Windows client group vice president Tom Button told WinHEC’s audience of Windows hardware engineers yesterday Microsoft would try to convince potential customers of the benefits of moving to a new PC. A lot of initiatives would revolve around working with OEM partners to drive demand, Button said.
This article is based on material originally published by ComputerWire
