Dell brings back XP for encore

By Stan Beer
Friday, 20 April 2007 19:33

Your IT - Home IT

Attempting to reinvent itself in the face of declining fortunes, PC heavyweight Dell has brought back Windows XP to a range of notebooks and desktops, setting itself on a collision course with Microsoft which wants vendors to bundle Vista with all new hardware.

It appears that Dell, which has slipped to the number two PC maker in the world, is determined to follow the advice of consumers on its IdeaStorm website and see where it takes them. The novel approach has already led Dell to commit itself to bring pre-installed Linux computers to market and the latest move pits the powerful PC vendor against the might of Microsoft.

Dell will sell XP Home and Professional on six PC models including two desktops and four notebooks.

Although Microsoft has said publicly that it will stop offering licences for XP to PC vendors from January 2008, Dell could well be buoyed by the fact that most business users globally have so far expressed little intention to move to Vista. An XP to Vista upgrade is viewed by many businesses as a major operation that they would prefer to avoid as long as possible.

Consumers, however, would be expected to accept Vista more readily, an assumption that appears to be contradicted by the views that appeared on IdeaStorm.

Microsoft's public response so far has been little more than a shrug and a claim that the pro XP views expressed on IdeaStorm represent a small minority of PC users.

With Dell rumoured to bring PCs loaded with a popular Linux distribution to market as early as this month, it will be interesting to see whether the what the users say goes approach will succeed in turning the company's fortunes around.