When Windows XP Goes Away, HP Thinks Businesses Will Start Buying PCs Again

Business Insider ^ | 06/15/2013 | Kevin McLaughlin

[SeekAndFind]

Microsoft was hoping Windows 8 would be such a hit with enterprises that they'd stop using Windows XP, an aging operating system that debuted in 2001. That hasn't happened, but HP thinks enterprises will have no choice but to upgrade to new PCs when Microsoft stops releasing security fixes for XP next April.

"We think this will bring a big opportunity for HP," Enrique Lore, SVP and GM of HP's business PC unit, said in a press conference Monday on the eve of HP's Discover customer conference, as reported by Computerworld's Patrick Thibodeau.

Lore said 40% to 50% of businesses are still using PCs running XP. But HP isn't assuming they'll upgrade to Windows 8 PCs.

John Tomesco, an exec in HP's PC and printers group, told IT World Canada's Nestor Arellano that businesses could choose Windows 7—which he described as "a very popular OS"—or Windows 8, depending on their needs.

Microsoft has been trying to get XP users to upgrade for several years now. But Windows XP still had about 38% of the worldwide PC market in May, according to NetMarketShare.

Enterprises will have to upgrade before next April because that's when Microsoft will stop pluggin security holes in XP. Many will choose Windows 7 because they don't want to train employees to use Microsoft's new Metro interface in Windows 8.

[SilverMine]

this is a great opportunity for a young entrepreneur. Develop an operating system that we, who hate the new windows, really liked 98, but can live with XP, can seamlessly and with little or no training, switch to.

[The Cajun]

What task on 7 do you find particularly confusing and hard to do?

I don't find it hard to do or particularly confusing.
I do find it more time consuming however to find certain system files, etc.
You have to admit the layout, commands and nomenclature is different concerning things that most people don't worry about in an OS.
I'm just not at home with Win 7 where I am with Win XP......So far.
It's different and I just don't like different at 66 years old.

My biggest concern is Win 8 and the supposed 8.1 from what I've read, because I'm at the point of buying a new machine for myself sometime this year.

[Arm_Bears]

HP is a big supporter of amnesty—Be damned if I buy anything from them ever again.

[MarkL]

Re: “I’d like to restore this machine because it has a lot of stuff I don’t want to lose.”

As long as the hard drive isn’t trashed, this will allow you to move your files to another computer for less than $15.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1PU0NV4813

Mark

[Jeff Chandler]

WINDOWS 9

[OneWingedShark]

Enthusiasm for PC tech is next to nothing these days.

I have a theory about that; I'm involved in the SW industry and we're pretty much forced into C-style (C/C++/Objective-C/C#/PHP) languages in "the industry"... despite their many obvious flaws — The if-statement being able to take an integer combined with the assignment returning a value being a common one; though this is corrected in C# — and the disservice of the education-industry stemming from many little failings, like failing to instil the idea of subtypes as being useful. (Seriously, with as many math classes as I took to get my BS in CS, I know how useful it is to be able to constrain values in making stable & elegant algorithms.)

Nobody cares about AMD vs Intel CPU battles.

To be fair, Intel vs. AMD is pretty boring — both being basically the same thing (like Democrat vs. Republican). We really lost out when Apple moved from the Motorola to the x86. More interesting would be things like the 144-core GA144 or the Rekursiv (well written summary).

[Zeneta]

Thanks,

I am really shocked that after an hour, waiting for this POS HP laptop to fire up.

I’m in.

I’ve waited longer in the past but for some reason, after an hour, this hour, I have access to my stuff.

The first thing I did was play “Deep Purple”, ‘Smoke on the water” live from Japan.

A very rare track.

[JCBreckenridge]

Yeah, I had that concern myself, but I got a good deal on this laptop with 7, I swapped a defective one with 8 on it for a better one with 7 since the store didn’t have a match in stock.

I’d recommend buying a backup copy of 7, just so that you’ve always got it if you need to reinstall the OS. That way if you don’t like 8 you can always put on 7.

[holymoly]

this is a great opportunity for a young entrepreneur. Develop an operating system that we, who hate the new windows, really liked 98, but can live with XP, can seamlessly and with little or no training, switch to.

Someone is trying (kind of): ReactOS

[The KG9 Kid]

Tablets? They support bluetooth keyboards you know, but just your phone is usually good enough these days. Android or iOS, its all transparent, but the iPhone is better. Only thing lacking a a big widescreen monitor to use as a primary display at your ‘home base’ — be it your company premises or home — and it’s sayonara for the grampa box. That’s already happening at Apple right now with faster/better video throughput than PC solutions can provide, if your a PC guy waiting for some monkey-see Korean operation to finally develop it for your Windows box:

http://www.apple.com/thunderbolt/

We had a business conference call last week that I was roped into and not one person was connected to our GoToMeeting using a Microsoft solution. Not even the presenter. Think about that for a moment and ask yourself how long MSFT can last with that going on.

Microsoft’s solution these days is announcing they’re teaming up with Best Buy to offer ‘Microsoft Stores’ like Apple has. *Best Buy*, for gods sakes. How appropriately ridiculous, seeing that Best Buy might not even be around next year judging by the maybe twenty customers and forty employees they have in the store at peak sales hours compared to Apple Stores that are so packed full of customers all day long that you’d think Scarlett Johannsen and Kiera Knightley were inside doing a free strip show.

My Apple gear offers a better MSFT Windows PC experience than a genuine MSFT PC clone: Office is far nicer on the Mac than on Windows, and you can run Windows natively on Apple hardware if you must. All done with a Mac Mini the size of a VHS cassette, which ironically, is about what Microsoft can be likened to these days.

Give it awhile and eventually we shall see that tablets and phones will prove that nobody needs a big honkin’ grampa box at home or in the office, just like almost nobody prints things on a printer anymore — you know, like an HP printer that HP thinks people will need when businesses start buying PCs again, as this thread is entitled, to get back on topic.

MSFT and HP are going over the cliff hand in hand like Thelma and Louise.

[Lancey Howard]

Would you have bought XP2 with your XP working well enough?

Good question. Sometimes I look and see that I have to scroll for a few seconds to view all the "security patches" that I've loaded over the years whenever that little yellow shield shows up down in the bottom bar. If this computer crashed and I had to get a new one, I would probably look for a new computer and load XP on it. (I still have the CD disk in my drawer over there.) So yeah, I would definitely want a product I know is good and reliable, and if there was an improved version of it (ie., I don't give a crap about buzzers, flashers, gadgets, and gimmicks, I'm a grownup thank you) of the same freaking thing, then I would buy it without question rather than reload the old one and spend a day uploading (downloading?) all the "updates".

But it's not so much about what I would buy as it is about all the new computer buyers who enter the market every day. They are not all kids. Microsoft could aim one product at the kids, and a good old-fashioned XP product at the adults.

See, I have no idea, nor do I care, what "OEM" or "BSOD" stands for. (I did figure out that "OS" means "operating system", right?) I think the geniuses and tinkerers and big thinkers at Microsoft and Apple and a lot of other "hi tech" companies forget who their buyers are, or at least a LOT of their buyers. I want to browse the internet, post on Free Republic, watch YouTube videos, listen to music, and run my little business (which uses a software program for the reports I produce and sell). I still have my 2007 "flip phone" and an extra battery for when it dies. I can make and receive phone calls, and even take pictures with it.

Me, and I suspect a lot of other people, do not need the latest gimmicks. Hip I ain't. I will run this computer and its XP right into the ground. Hopefully later rather than sooner.

FRegards,
LH

[Neidermeyer]

I like Windows 7. Hate Vista and 8.
*************************************
7 is real good , “Vista Business” is almost the same ,, Vista Home .. not so much..

[The KG9 Kid]

I’m casually learning C# these days, but I wish that my company took initiatives that would justify me learning it for them rather than for the next place I work. Still need Visual Studio for that I guess...

[Neidermeyer]

I have an HP Laptop, 4 years old, running Vista.

Not long ago it crashed and won’t start.
*******************************************
Call HP , get a OS reload disk , buy a new hard drive and reload..

While you’ve got it open bump the memory to the limit.

[Patton@Bastogne]

XP works. period. screw microsoft with their myraid of “veesta” respins ...

[Revolting cat!]

You sir, are a Neanderthal Luddite ..

And you apparently use the Internet to demonstrate to the world what a Advanced Progressive Superior person you are. Bad news: no one believes you.

[Zeneta]

I called Hp 1 month out of warranty on the keyboard issue. I found out later that it was an known problem and the “work around” was to remove the battery and re-place it. There was no help from HP. Just a run around.

Now that I have this machine up and running I’m afraid to turn it off or attempt a restart.

[OneWingedShark]

OpenVMS... Hmmm... That explains a lot, and I'm very sorry. I'm sure Brian, Dennis, Ken, and Rob are just heartbroken! ;-)

*shrug* - I think we're getting to the point where we really need better tools (read languages) for our programming. Ada, for example, has subtypes so we can do the following:

type Integer is range -2**31..2**31-1;
subtype Natural is Integer range 0..Integer'Last;
subtype Positive is Natural range Natural'Succ(Natural'First)..Natural'Last;

or with the new Ada 2012 standard, we can write:

-- A prime number is one that is not evenly divisible by any number between 2 and half the given number.
subtype Prime is positive
with dynamic_predicate => (for all X in 2..(prime/2) => prime mod X /= 0);

Then there's interesting (and very different) languages like LISP, FORTH, Prolog, and Ada — which seem to be overlooked in the SW industry because they aren't C-like and the companies want cookie-cutter replacement-employees (meaning they don't want to train them, meaning they want "the most general" programmers out there, meaning they don't pick the best language for the job).

[Darksheare]

I’m running Se7en Ultimata on the ‘replacement box’ since the XP machine finally gave upo the ghost after many years of faithful service.
I will NEVER go to W8.
It is Vista 2.0.9.7.5.0.1.gopher.dipthong.sumerian text gibberish

[Darksheare]

Is it an HP Dv7 laptop with an AMD chip?

If so, Vista bricks it due to a certain windows Vista update.
My fix: Replace the OS with Se7en.

It hasn’t bricked since, boots and runs fine.