Michael Parekh is thinking about purchasing a copy of XP while it’s still available this year and then waiting until the release of the next version of Windows–which Microsoft is indicating might be three or so years from now. His plan is to skip Vista–or at least hold out until the drivers are better.
I can appreciate his master plan, however, three plus years can be a long time in the tech world. By then XP can look mighty old and feature incomplete.
Now I’m presuming in all this that Vista will have a couple of refreshes along the way which will make it even more palatable. For me, XP already looks tired. I really like the way Vista manages WiFi connections, for instance. (Although there’s more to do here in terms of transparent transitioning between WiFi and WLAN networks…hint, hint.)
A side point to all of this is whether XP is worth keeping around. In some ways it is. Just look at the OEMs and what they are favoring now for small, mobile devices. Quite often they pick XP. I’m not sure if this is because customers are demanding it or because XP makes their products “look” the best. Either way, it seems like Microsoft may want to rethink its idea of dropping XP soon–or at least might I suggest that eBayers start stocking up on XP boxes, because there very well may be strong demand for them post 2008.