China asks Microsoft to delay the death of Windows XP

[geeteam]

On April 8, 2014 Microsoft will officially end support for it's once popular Windows XP operating system. The company has given plenty of notice regarding this intention as, after all, a surprising number of businesses were, and still are, using the decade old OS. That may sound shocking, but the IT industry doesn't particularly like to rush into things -- many still used Internet Explorer 6 until not so long ago.

Now the world's most populous nation is begging for the death warrant to be repealed and XP's life to continue a bit longer. China claims that 54-percent of its population is still using the 12 year old operating system. 38-percent have moved onto Windows 7, but Microsoft also is no longer selling that in the country. The nation claims that ending support for XP would place a financial burden on the citizens. While China's concern for its citizens seems touching, the truth is that much of the government is still using the operating system.

"With every new version of Windows we have made substantial security updates from the previous versions and both consumers and organisations can get advice on how to upgrade to a more recent operating system at www.get2modern.com", a Microsoft spokesperson claimed in a statement to PCR. In other words, Microsoft has no plans to back down from the currently scheduled end-of-life for XP.

Source

[janedoe]

Financial burden? Do they care to reveal what percentage of that 54% still using XP pirated it? This request sounds quite funny to me!

[mikie]

China is very good at, shall we say, hacking win xp computers to, shall we say, stealing info to, should we say, duplicate other peoples products & putting nearly identical items then on the market for cheap.

People finally get rid of win xp .. china might need to actually start designing & engineering products on their own. This could eventually affect world wide prices on everyday products like resistors and can openers.

Edited December 5, 2013 by mikie

[Ambrocious]

I'm betting that Microsoft will do it for China. China looks like it will be the new world super power...of course they have some authority to ask and possibly get results.

Edited December 5, 2013 by Ambrocious

[kaloo1995]

I'm betting that Microsoft will do it for China. China looks like it will be the new world super power...of course they have some authority to ask and possibly get results.

quite sure china will get it.

[davmil]

First (reportedly) 90%+ people steal XP outright, then they demand rights on it's retirement? Because "at least the government didn't steal their licenses?" Now there's a reason.

If some group acted to steal my product 90% of the time I wouldn't even return their calls. Must be the 10% that do pay cover all the bills. They're dreaming if they think the same thing won't happen again. They have no intention of paying for intellectual property unless they stand to gain by doing so.

[ASIO]

ohh man ha ha ha ha ha ha hah a :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf:

[demoneye]

IMO ms will agree to that , deliver some more time ONLY for china...you cant ignore china ...like others says , its the next/upcoming superpower country :)

[ffi]

Please MS don't do this, XP deserves to die, it have been dead long already. It's time to move into the 2010 instead of using 90's technoly

[ASIO]

lol they can also make the CHINA XP :P

[insanedown58]

I think they'll limit it hard to be for China only with it requiring a specialized Chinese license so that all that aren't in the Chinese special treatment plan will have their XP rigs ripped out of the MS Update Center.

Though I don't use XP anymore, I love that OS like a brother being the OS I grew up using.

Edited December 5, 2013 by insanedown58

[LeeSmithG]

China should make their own operating system or go use google.

[nIGHT]

Something is definitely wrong here. :think:

[shasi]

hmmm

[speedpedal]

I Agree with the comment on China Should Make It's Own Operating System, it makes everything else . . . If it actually works well then MS Could use it's the code and call it WIN 10 Just a thought.

[janedoe]

China Should Make It's Own Operating System, it makes everything else . . .

Manufacturing on contract is very different from designing/developing/creating something original. Anyway, for all those saying China should make its own OS, the closest they came to it was Red Flag Linux (read the Wikipedia article). Obviously the Chinese govt. contributed nothing to the Linux codebase but simply rebranded the free OS, which is still fine I guess. What's funny is how the govt. was angry with Microsoft and in 2000 ordered all ministries to immediately uninstall Win2K and switch to RFL. Guess we now know that the ministries just laughed at the request and are still very much using Windows (whether legally or pirated). I honestly wonder how many PCs RFL has ever been installed on out of choice and without governmental threats?

Edited December 6, 2013 by janedoe

[oliverjia]

Agreed. Coming up with a new OS is not as easy as it sounds.

However, I do believe China has the potential to deliver an OS, be it based on Linux, BSD, Unix, etc. Now again, this is not a completely NEW OS, but something that is usable, if they really want to. In fact, Ubuntu is partnering with China on a localized version of Ubuntu. Given time, I do believe it is possible that there will be original software emerging from within that huge country, provided they tighten IP protection law.

Now some of the posters above talked about hacking/stealing information. Come on, read some wikileaks and the latest Sn0wd3n fiasco, do you really think ONLY the Chinese government are doing this kind of privacy/security hacking?

China Should Make It's Own Operating System, it makes everything else . . .

Manufacturing on contract is very different from designing/developing/creating something original. Anyway, for all those saying China should make its own OS, the closest they came to it was Red Flag Linux (read the Wikipedia article). Obviously the Chinese govt. contributed nothing to the Linux codebase but simply rebranded the free OS, which is still fine I guess. What's funny is how the govt. was angry with Microsoft and in 2000 ordered all ministries to immediately uninstall Win2K and switch to RFL. Guess we now know that the ministries just laughed at the request and are still very much using Windows (whether legally or pirated). I honestly wonder how many PCs RFL has ever been installed on out of choice and without governmental threats?