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At Computex 2008 currently being held in Taiwan any number of exciting new products are being introduced, however for me one of the most interesting bits of information has to do with software, not hardware.

The venerable Windows XP was supposed to hit End of Sale on June 30th of this year to allow Vista to become the only option for new PCs, therefore boosting it’s marketplace acceptance. However, at Computex Microsoft has announced that due to the coming wave of ULCPC (Ultra Low Price PCs) they are extending the sales of new XP desktop licenses to 2010, bringing it in line with the End of Sale date for UMPCs running XP (see the Press Release from Microsoft HERE).

Personally, considering the reluctance many people have shown to seeing the end of the XP era (apparently forgetting how badly maligned this OS once was) and the true beginning of the Vista age, this move is not surprising.

In fact, it could be a good business plan for Microsoft continue selling a massively discounted, partially crippled XP alongside Vista indefinitely as a dedicated version of Windows for UMPCs and ULCPCs. There certainly seems to be a strong demand for XP on those devices now that they are hitting the mainstream and more and more non-technical people are being spooked by Linux (rightly or wrongly).

Either way, having an XP version of the Eee Box desktop from Asus (also officially presented at Computex) or other similar systems would certainly boost sales right out of the gate. Sounds like a perfect, relatively plug and play desktop for kids or entry level PC users which would require very little handholding. Anyone who has  played helpdesk for an elderly relative’s new PC problems knows of what I speaks.

Zealot (473 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

By day a department manager and writer for a major network device vendor...by night Zealot stalks the mean magnetic streets, striking fear into the hearts of bandwidth abusers and theme park mascots. Zealot has been involved with mobile devices for more than a decade now, starting off with dumb phones, moving to PDAs and then to smartphones, notebooks and netbooks with the odd PMP thrown in. Most of his mobile time currently is spent on a Treo Pro, Zune HD, Thinkpad T61, Gigabyte M912M or a Hackintoshed Compaq Mini 704. He proudly groks the Geek community and considers himself a Neo Maxi Zune Dweebie (thanks Will Wheaton!).