Microsoft still does not manage to get rid of XP

In spite of its best efforts and expensive advertising campaign, Microsoft has not managed to impose Windows Vista on the public. The demand for the XP operating system continues to be very strong, with a number of customers requesting to have it on their new machine in the place of Vista.
In order not to lose market share or at least sales, Microsoft announced to the PC retailers that they will have another 6 months to offer to their customers an update making it possible to downgrade their machine to the old OS. The new deadline is henceforth fixed at July 31, 2009.
This offer is nothing more than an artifact of sales. Officially, XP is not on sale, but it is possible for customers to buy one of the two most expensive versions of Vista (Business or Ultimate) and to downgrade free and officially to XP. Thus, these customers officially buy a version of Vista which makes it possible for Microsoft to enter it such and to also make more money.
As things stand, many customers will bypass Vista and will jump from XP directly to Windows 7, assuming that it is really better than Vista.