Public Works Canada solicitation about FOSS

[Alex Beamish]

On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 10:40 AM, Evan Leibovitch <evan-ieNeDk6JonTYtjvyW6yDsg at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Alex Beamish wrote:
>> As Rob has already indicated, operating systems are not necessarily
>> one-size-fits-all; offering a choice makes it easier to convince a
>> customer that IBM has a solution that will work for them. And this
>> puzzles me about Microsoft: instead of continuing to sell and support
>> Windows XP, they insist on closing down a now stable operating system
>> and forcing their customer to buy The New Thing, Vista. And then
>> Microsoft's compounding the problem by coming out with Windows 7,
>> meaning some customers will skip Vista altogether and go with that
>> product instead. That's weird
> Not really, if you consider their business model (selling software licenses)
>
> Once everyone has XP on their computer, the market is saturated. People
> expect not to have to pay for security updates. So the only way to get
> recurring revenue out of that market is to offer a 'feature' upgrade
> that requires a new license.

I'm talking about people who want to buy new computers, installed with
XP, not Vista -- those customers are the ones hearing that Microsoft
isn't selling XP anymore. I don't get that part of the equation. I
think it's agreed that Vista requires 2-3 times more powerful systems;
why not sell XP as the older, slower, less featured product?

I presume that the cost of providing security updates for XP is built
into the cost of selling the OS in the first place. If there's still a
solid revenue stream from people buying XP, that alone should pay for
the security updates and minor bug fixes. The original development
cost for XP must have been fully amortized by now. They don't need to
advertise. What other costs are there?

I just don't understand a business that discontinues a product or
service that's still making them money. That's the part I find weird.

-- 
Alex Beamish
Toronto, Ontario
aka talexb
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