Last week we at InfoWorld almost broke out the champagne. At an event in Belgium on Thursday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said the company might reconsider its decision to stop selling Windows XP on June 30. An Associated Press report quoted him as saying: "If customer feedback varies, we can always wake up smarter."
This news broke after InfoWorld spent three months of campaigning for a stay of execution for XP, and we were elated. Microsoft was finally listening to the outcry over the unnecessarily disruptive effects of customers being pushed to upgrade to Vista. Victory was at hand.
Our joy lasted only a couple of hours. According to a subsequent report from Reuters, the second half of Ballmer's quote was: " ... but right now, we have a plan for end-of-life for new XP shipments." A Microsoft spokesperson later confirmed that (aside from already existing exceptions), the June 30 end-of-sale date was not going anywhere.
[ Learn more about the latest moves in the campaign to Save Windows XP | Learn how Dell will keep XP available past June 30 ]
Apparently, the 180,000-plus signatures collected for our Save XP campaign are not enough "customer feedback" to matter. The company says it's aware of InfoWorld's Save XP campaign, but we have been rebuffed in our attempts to deliver the petition -- so much for listening to customers. Microsoft is content to ignore 180,000. But can it ignore 1 million? How about 10 million? With just two months to go before XP goes off the market, it's time to turn up the volume and get everyone you know to sign the petition.
And just to show we're not a bunch of drudges -- and to prove there are actual living and breathing human beings involved in the Save XP campaign -- how about uploading your own Save XP video plea to the InfoWorld "Save XP" section of Facebook? You can also upload them directly to the InfoWorld site using our BrightCove player form. We'll show off the funniest, most creative appeals to save XP on our "Save XP" video home page.
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