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Windows XP retained many loyal users during the dark ages of Vista, but the emergence of Windows 7 may signal the end of an era.

The vast majority of PC users still haven't adopted Vista. Eight years after its release--and months after Microsoft officially discontinued it--Windows XP is more beloved than ever.

So will Windows 7 convince XP loyalists to switch? Instead of guessing, we decided to ask them. In August, we conducted an online survey of more than 8000 people who told us that XP was their primary OS. The top three reasons they haven't upgraded to Vista: They're comfortable with XP, Vista lacks features that might justify an upgrade, and they're concerned about driver and compatibility issues.

Vistaphobia ran high among respondents who had tried Windows Vista (62 percent said that their opinion of the OS was somewhat or very negative) and among those who merely knew about it (81 percent were somewhat or very negative). But most respondents said that were keeping an open mind about Windows 7.

In fact, the 26 percent of respondents who said they had already used Windows 7 were quite enthusiastic about it: 73 percent said that their opinion of Win 7 was somewhat or very positive, and only 11 percent said that it was very or somewhat negative. Also, 56 percent said that they intended to move to Windows 7 immediately or eventually. Among respondents who had read about Windows 7 but hadn't used it, 56 percent said that their opinion of Win 7 was somewhat or very positive, and only 12 percent said that it was somewhat or very negative.

Still, a meaningful minority of respondents have no interest in upgrading: 40 percent said that they intended to stick with XP indefinitely. Which brings up another interesting question: When will it become impractical to keep using XP and spurning its successors?

Supposedly, that date has already come and gone: Microsoft formally discontinued Windows XP on June 30, 2008, and it ended mainstream support on April 14, 2009. But the company has continued to permit PC builders to offer downgrade discs that let XP fans install the OS over Vista. It says that manufacturers can ship Windows 7 machines with XP downgrades for 18 months after Win 7's release or until it ships the first Service Pack for the new OS--whichever comes first. In other words, XP downgrades may be available until April 22, 2011 (assuming that Microsoft doesn't extend the deadline further; it has already granted XP so many stays of execution that refusing to grant any more would be a bit surprising.)

Windows XP's final death knell is scheduled to sound on April 8, 2014. On that date, Microsoft says that it will no longer take support calls and issue security fixes. This doesn't mean that no one will run XP on April 9 and beyond--it just means that they'll be on their own. XP holdouts, you've been warned.

It looks like Microsoft has the advantage -- at least for now -- in its David vs. Goliath legal skirmish with Canadian software developer i4i, which recently won a patent infringement suit against the software giant.

A quick recap: Last month, U.S. District Court Judge Leonard Davis halted the sale of Microsoft’s ubiquitous word processors -- Word 2003 and Word 2007 -- in their current form after October 10. But a federal appeals court yesterday granted Redmond’s request to suspend the injunction. The ongoing battle centers on Word’s capability to create custom XML documents, a capability that i4i says infringes on its patent.

It’s extremely unlikely that Word will cease to exist. If i41 prevails, Microsoft will likely disable the offending feature, some patent experts predict. But what if it didn’t? Microsoft has warned of computer Armageddon if it’s not allowed to sell Word in its current form.

Computerworld’s Gregg Keizer, quoting from Microsoft’s emergency motion filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals, summarizes this dire scenario:

" 'Microsoft and its distributors (which include retailers such as Best Buy and OEMs such as HP and Dell) face the imminent possibility of a massive disruption in their sales,’ Microsoft argued in the motion. ‘If left undisturbed, the district court's injunction will inflict irreparable harm on Microsoft by potentially keeping the centerpiece of its product line out of the market for months,’ the firm's lawyers added. ‘The injunction would block not only the distribution of Word, but also of the entire Office suite, which contains Word and other popular programs.’ ”

Rubbish? You bet. But for the sake of argument, let’s say that Microsoft was forced to halt all sales of Word. Would the computing world as we know it cease to spin? Hardly.

First, there are plenty of alternative word processors out there, most of which read Word files perfectly well. Sure, there might be a few formatting glitches, but that’s to be expected during any file conversion. Microsoft Office users, particularly those who rely heavily on the well-honed integration between Excel, Word, Outlook, and PowerPoint, would experience the most problems. But, again, the ban would affect new sales of Word, not existing copies. So users would have time to develop workarounds.

Plus, there’d be one big silver lining to a Microsoft Word ban: A true universal document format could take hold, one that replaces today’s defacto standard -- Microsoft’s doc/docx -- that’s tied too closely to the whims of one software vendor.

Word ban? Sure, why not?

Contact Jeff Bertolucci via Twitter (@jbertolucci) or at jbertolucci.blogspot.com.

The highly anticipated follow up to the XPERIA X1 will launch in Q4 with Windows Mobile 6.5

Sony Ericsson has announced its hotly anticipated follow up to the XPERIA X1 smartphone — the XPERIA X2 — will launch in Australia in "early Q4".

One of the first smartphones to be shipped with Windows Mobile 6.5, the XPERIA X2 promises a "best in class" e-mail and multimedia experience. It is a full touch screen smartphone with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. The XPERIA X2 also has an 8.1-megapixel camera, a 3.2in display, built-in GPS, Wi-Fi and HSDPA connectivity.

The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 was a well built-handset with a strong feature set, but suffered lag and slowdown that resulted in an overly frustrating user experience. The XPERIA X2 is set to benefit largely from Windows Mobile 6.5, though it includes the same processor and memory specifications as its predecessor.

Among the XPERIA X2's new features is SlideView, providing quick access to frequently used phone applications, including contacts and messages. XPERIA's panel system — first seen in the X1 — has been expanded to include 14 preloaded panels from the likes of Skype, Google and CNN; there are 16 panels available for download.

"The XPERIA X2 brings together best in class technologies for people on the move," said Steve Wilson of Sony Ericsson. "Today more than ever, people need to seamlessly switch between their work and private lives and the XPERIA X2’s unique panels allow them to do this in one touch."

Sony Ericsson also announced the XPERIA X2 will come with a dedicated after-sales support service, called XPERIA Services. In addition to a service that allows handsets to be replaced under warranty even if the user has travelled abroad, XPERIA Services provides walkthroughs and troubleshooting guides for the smartphone's users.

The new N97 Mini and the X6 feature tight integration with Facebook and improved specs over their predecessors

Nokia introduced on Wednesday two new touchscreen smartphones that aim to spice up your mobile life. The new N97 Mini and the X6 feature tight integration with Facebook and improved specs over their predecessors.

During the Nokia World conference in Stuttgart, Germany, Nokia presented two new touchscreen phones that will make your Twitter-using friends jealous. Both the N97 Mini and the X6 will ship in the fourth quarter, so read on to find out what to expect out of the two phones.

Nokia N97 Mini

The N97 Mini is the follow-up of Nokia's current flagship device, the N97, only in a smaller form. Featuring a 3.2-inch, 16:9 aspect ratio display, the 3G-enabled N97 Mini rocks a full kick-out QWERTY keyboard and a 5-megapixel camera with dual LED flash.

Around 0.3 inch smaller than the N97, the N97 Mini packs WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, and a GPS receiver next to the now standard 3.5mm headphone plug. Unlike its bigger sibling, the N97 comes with only 8GB of built-in storage (32GB on the N97) that can be expanded with another 16GB via microSD cards.

But the new selling point of the new N97 Mini is what Nokia calls Lifecasting. The Finnish company partnered with Facebook, and the new phone can now share to Facebook your location, together with your status, directly from the N97 Mini's homescreen.

The Nokia N97 Mini is due out in October, with Australian pricing yet to be announced.

Nokia X6

The new X6 is Nokia's 5800 XpressMusic follow-up, a music-centric device, hence the 32GB on built-in storage. The 5800 camera got an upgrade as well on the X6, up to 5-megapixel with dual LED flash, now on the par with the N97 Mini.

The Nokia X6 handles connectivity well, with WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, and A-GPS, plus a 3.5mm headphone jack. The X6 integrates with Facebook too, bringing a Facebook widget and 20 of your friends' activity on the homescreen.

The Nokia X6 will launch in the fourth quarter, with Australian pricing yet to be determined. Nokia will introduce a Comes With Music version of the X6 as well, but only in selected countries.

Note: Nokia said that N97 users would benefit of the new Lifecasting feature as well via the company's Beta Labs.

Engineer says they're still investigating what caused the nearly two-hour crash.

After a nearly two-hour outage, Google Inc. is getting its Gmail e-mail service back up and running this evening.

The company announced on its Gmail Blog that the problem has been fixed and Gmail should be back up and running as usual.

However, while David Besbris, an engineering director at Google, says they've fixed the problem, he also said they still haven't identified what the problem was.

"We're still investigating the root cause of this outage, and we'll share more information soon," wrote Besbris . "Thanks for bearing with us."

It's not clear exactly when the outage began this afternoon but complaints began appearing on Twitter around 4 p.m. EDT. In a 4:02 p.m. EDT post on its Apps Status page, Google confirmed that Gmail was suffering an outage. The site also noted that Gmail had been dealing with service disruptions yesterday as well.

Jay Nancarrow, a Google spokesman, said in an e-mail to Computerworld that the service was down for about an hour and 45 minutes. He added that it affected the majority of Gmail's tens of millions of users.

This isn't Google's first big Gmail glitch this year. Gmail suffered well-publicized crashes in both February and May.

Dan Olds, an analyst with The Gabriel Consulting Group, said, "The more prevalent and important Google Apps, like Gmail, become, the more negative attention each outage will garner, much to Google's embarrassment and chagrin."

"E-mail is a mission-critical application for business users. Period. If customers perceive that Gmail isn't reliable, they won't adopt it. Every Gmail outage makes companies think twice before adopting the free email solution."

Twitter erupted with frustrated tweets from users unable to access their Gmail accounts.

Tweets ranged from: "Gmail, where did you go? I cannot live with this 502 error", to "And those of us willing to pay $US14/year for fastmail.fm just laugh," and "Dear gmail. Was it something I said? I only use my yahoo acct for shopping. It means nothing to me. Please come back. XXOO."

Joe Eckert recently penned a short, funny piece entitled, "Does Tech Need a Boost? How About "Cash for Vista?". After I got done smiling at it, I thought: why not offer desktop Linux to people with Vista clunkers? Seriously, why not?

Microsoft owes it to its Vista customers to offer them a free upgrade to Windows 7, as Windows 7 is really just a massive Vista service patch. There are no new significant features in Windows 7. You'd think that Microsoft, which has been having one bad quarter after another, would want to be nice to its customers — but no, that's not going to happen.

So, since Microsoft won't give Windows 7 to people stuck with Vista clunkers, why doesn't a Linux vendor do it instead? Say you just send an e-mail into a Linux distributor, and they'll send you a URL to a Web site where they can download a brand-spanking new copy of a top desktop Linux for free! What a deal!

What's that? Yes, I know Linux is free, but they don't know that! If they think they're getting a bargain maybe they'll finally start giving Linux a try.

Seriously, though, I think some of the Linux vendors should consider this idea. Instead of just offering them a vanilla Linux distribution, they could put together a package that includes CodeWeavers' CrossOver Linux for Windows applications, and modify the desktop so it has a familiar Vista (say KDE 4.3) or XP (KDE 3.5.x) look.

If you'd rather not use CrossOver Linux for Windows applications, there's always Wine, Crossover's foundation. Or make a point of putting common Windows program replacements like OpenOffice for Microsoft Office and GnuCash for Quicken front and center so Vista users can easily get up to speed.

I wish there was an easy-to-use Windows-to-Linux desktop migration program, but the best of that lot, Versora Progression Desktop, has not been available since 2007, when Versora was bought out by Kaseya, an IT Managed Services Automation firm. While Kaseya promised that Versora's functionality would still be available, I couldn't find it any of Kaseya's currently shipping products — and, in any case, Kaseya's customers are businesses, not individual desktop Linux or Windows users. If there are any programmers out there who want an idea that could make a profitable little product, I think you could do well with a Windows to Linux migration tool.

Still, just throw in some basic Windows/Linux interoperability tools such as the NTFS-3G driver so Vista users could keep their existing files and directories, and I think you just find some Vista users who will be happy to become desktop Linux users. After all, since Microsoft isn't going to help them, Vista users already need all the help they can to move to a better, more reliable operating system. So, why not Linux for Vista clunkers? Think about it.

Google's nearly two-hour Gmail outage Tuesday was the result of a miscalculation regarding the capacity of its system, the company said late Tuesday.

Gmail was down from about 12:30 p.m. PDT Tuesday to about 2:30 p.m. PDT, affecting millions of Gmail customers who depend on the service for everything from fantasy football roster updates to business-critical information. The problem was caused by a classic cascade in which servers became overwhelmed with traffic in rapid succession.

According to Google, the problem began when it took several Gmail servers offline for maintenance, a routine procedure that normally is transparent to users. However, the twist this time around was that Google had made some changes to the routers that direct Gmail traffic to servers in hopes of improving reliability, and those changes backfired.

"As we now know, we had slightly underestimated the load which some recent changes (ironically, some designed to improve service availability) placed on the request routers -- servers which direct web queries to the appropriate Gmail server for response," Google said in a post to its Gmail blog late Tuesday.

"At about 12:30 p.m. Pacific a few of the request routers became overloaded and in effect told the rest of the system 'stop sending us traffic, we're too slow!' This transferred the load onto the remaining request routers, causing a few more of them to also become overloaded, and within minutes nearly all of the request routers were overloaded," wrote Ben Treynor, vice president of engineering and site reliability czar.

Google fixed the problem by allocating traffic across the rest of its prodigious network, a luxury that it enjoys given the resources it has put in place to operate the world's leading search engine. But what's next?

Google said it would focus on making sure that the request routers have sufficient headroom to handle future spikes in demand, as well as figuring out a way to make sure that problems in one sector can be isolated without bringing down the entire service. "We'll be hard at work over the next few weeks implementing these and other Gmail reliability improvements -- remains more than 99.9% available to all users, and we're committed to keeping events like today's notable for their rarity," Treynor wrote.

Several Google Apps customers who use Gmail for internal e-mail at their businesses and organizations did not return calls Tuesday seeking information on the degree to which they were affected, making it difficult to know the magnitude of the failure. However, Google has put an awful lot of time and money this year behind promoting Gmail as a back-end e-mail software alternative to products from Microsoft and IBM, and embarrassments like this will not help it sell the service to other organizations.

"We know how many people rely on Gmail for personal and professional communications, and we take it very seriously when there's a problem with the service," Treynor wrote. "Thus, right up front, I'd like to apologize to all of you -- today's outage was a Big Deal, and we're treating it as such."