Windows XP to Live On in Low-Cost Intel Devices (
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Microsoft reportedly will announce during Intel Developer Forum that Windows XP's end-of-support date will be extended and that the popular operating system will appear on Intel Internet devices and subnotebooks.Windows XP, edging perilously close to its June 30
end-of-support date, is looking to get a reprieve when Intel rolls out low-cost
subnotebooks and MIDs (Mobile
Internet Devices).
Intel has been touting its low-cost Atom processor, a small yet powerful
chip created with Intel's 45-nanometer process that can be crammed together
2,500 CPUs to a wafer. Atom will be powering both MIDs and what
Intel is calling "netbooks" or "nettops"—rudimentary
subnotebooks good for e-mail, Internet browsing, basic document creation and
not much beyond that, to be priced between $250 and $350.
Microsoft isn't responding to queries from news outlets, including eWEEK,
but multiple publications have cited sources as saying Microsoft will soon announce
that it will extend the kill date for Windows XP, specifically as it relates to
subnotebooks and Internet devices such as Intel's MIDs. The sources expect the
announcement to coincide with IDF
(the Intel Developer Forum), being held in Shanghai, China, April 2-3.
Intel spokesperson Bill Calder told eWEEK that Windows Vista just doesn't
make sense for the Atom-run "netbooks."
The netbooks will be running on either a version of XP or Linux, Calder
said, depending on customer needs or geography, with Intel working closely with
Linux developers to customize the operating system for this form factor.
"You won't see Vista on these, obviously,
because memory is limited," Calder said.
Michael Cherry, lead analyst for Windows and Mobile
at Directions on Microsoft, agreed, saying it "seems pretty logical"
to him that Vista can't fit on Intel's subnotebooks,
mainly because the operating system has "some pretty extensive
requirements."
Cherry said, "It requires a pretty powerful processor, it requires a
pretty significant graphics card, it's a pretty … heavyweight operating system,"
and, plus, Vista is pricey.
Cherry said a good guess at how the reprieved XP might appear in
subnotebooks would be that it might look like Windows XP Starter Edition, a
slimmed-down, lower-cost, entry-level version of the operating system that
Microsoft announced in December 2007.
Cherry described XP SE as "an attempt to kind of get down to the kind
of features people really needed and that would not require too significant of
a footprint." For example, XP SE can work with 256MB of RAM
and is designed for low-cost, entry-level PCs.
XP SE is limited to low-end hardware and can only run three programs at a
time, with some XP features either removed or disabled by default. Microsoft
designed XP SE to be, according to its press release, a "low-cost
introduction" to Windows XP, designed "for first-time desktop PC
users in developing countries," and hitherto it has only been available in
Thailand, Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia, Russia, India, Colombia, Brazil,
Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Mexico, Ecuador, Uruguay and Venezuela.
Those same geographical limitations could, in fact, be extended to the
appearance of XP on Intel's devices, given that Intel's Calder pointed to
geographical considerations playing a part in whether Linux or XP would appear
on MIDs or Atom-run notebooks.
But at any rate, Microsoft apparently agrees with Intel regarding the market
potential of slimmed-down, pocket-sized Internet devices that attempt to give
both Apple's iPhone and RIM's BlackBerry a run for their money.
"Simple, easy to use, very affordable Internet devices, those things
look pretty cool to us," Calder said. Intel is forecasting that the market
for low-cost, Internet-centric mobile devices will be seeing sales of tens of
millions of units by 2011, enabled by breakthroughs such as that represented by
the Atom processor, which brings the devices' price down into the $250 range.
