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Standing up to Microsoft

Rupert Goodwins AnchorDesk

Published: 26 Sep 2001 17:09 BST

Microsoft's upgrade policy is nothing if not predictable. Just when you've got used to the old version, along comes a new one that substantially outperforms what went before, leaving the user gasping and wondering how on earth the company managed to pull it off again. And this time, it's a biggie -- Microsoft Arrogance XP is so far ahead of Microsoft Arrogance 98 that it'll take the competition years to even get close.

As usual, the product can be broken down into consumer and business variants. Arrogance XP Home Edition says that your computing experience will be made less pleasant because the operating system will turn itself off if you change your computer too much, at which point you'll have to go begging to Microsoft to be allowed to use it some more. This is because us users have been wicked children for many years, denying Microsoft its just rewards by pirating its software -- why, the company's been at death's door from our leeching. Now we can't do that, but by way of recompense and to celebrate its enhanced revenues Microsoft will charge us a bit more than last time. And if we don't like that? Microsoft acts in a way that suggests it couldn't care less.

But that's nothing compared to Microsoft Arrogance XP Professional Edition -- a full-strength version, and then some. From October 1st, corporate licence holders will upgrade when Microsoft tells them to, not when they want. They either pay an annual fee for a two-year maintenance contract, or pay list price for upgrades. Or they don't have a license -- and don't think that Microsoft has any compunction about letting people know about the consequences there. Just to make it an offer you can't refuse, existing options, which included a four-year upgrade cycle, have been withdrawn -- people who were on that will pay between 68 and 107 percent more than before, according to the Gartner Group.

Of course, businesses are furious. But the company is unmoved, saying that everyone has choice and that the changes help people get "the latest and greatest from Microsoft in a predictable way." Perhaps people didn't find it difficult in the past to get upgrades when they wanted them, but Microsoft isn't listening. It doesn't have to listen.