Reluctance to upgrade starts to hurt Microsoft

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Ina Fried CNET News

Published: 02 Feb 2004 14:30 GMT

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"I think if we make a change to a support lifecycle we will make those changes sooner in the support lifecycle," said Andy Erlandson, director of product support services for Microsoft. "That's one thing we learned from this go-around."

Linux waiting in the wings
The coming years may represent the best opportunity yet for Linux to make headway against Windows on the desktop, given customers' ambivalence toward upgrading, combined with Microsoft's extended product delivery schedule. The company is not planning a major upgrade to Windows XP until Longhorn arrives, perhaps around 2006. But when it does arrive, Microsoft promises a major advance that could widen the gap between what Windows has to offer versus competing operating systems. "Longhorn -- if they can deliver on the vision -- will be a very compelling upgrade, I think," RedMonk's O'Grady said.

"That's why Linux has to get established now," he said. "I think the climate is never going to be better for them and is likely to get significantly more difficult" with Longhorn.

On the server side of its operating system business, Microsoft faces a similar challenge. Windows NT 4 Server -- long superceded by both Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 -- still accounts for more than a quarter of Windows server installations. Paid support for NT 4 is ending at the end of this year, a fact that Microsoft touts prominently on a special Web site geared toward convincing server customers to upgrade to Windows Server 2003.

The software maker is walking a fine line, as it tries to gently nudge customers away from NT 4.0 without pushing them away from Windows entirely.

Sensing an opportunity, IBM last week launched an effort to try and woo Windows NT users to its Linux-based servers. An executive from Big Blue predicted that the workload from as many as half of the 2 million servers out there could eventually migrate to Linux-based machines.

Microsoft executives acknowledge the looming threat. "Anytime a customer is considering a platform change the field is wide open, not just Linux," said Jim Hebert, a general manager in Microsoft's Windows Server group.

CNET News.com's Mike Ricciuti contributed to this report.

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