Well June 30 is almost upon us, which means the end of new copies of Windows XP made for retail (and bundled with mainstream systems), or as some might put it, the end of an era. Larry Dignan over on ZDNet says our options now are to "shut up and go with Vista" or try a new OS altogether. Well, the thing is, customers are having a hard time letting go (business customers and otherwise), and so is Microsoft, apparently. And so, the field of vision becomes considerably wider.

XP will live on in five ways, which include being made available from smaller manufacturers and in ultra low-cost PCs, availability in 'emerging markets' in the form of XP Starter Edition, Vista 'downgrade' rights, and continued support.

Smaller manufacturer and downgrade support will resume until January 31, 2009, low-cost PC as well as emerging market support until June 30, 2010, and Microsoft support until 2009 (extended support til April 2014).

Are these signs of Microsoft's awareness of Vista's largely apprehensive would-be adopters? While it may not be a failure in their eyes, I'm thinking this is probably still true (the awareness, I mean). Figures are figures, right? And according to Evans Data (cited by Dignan), 92% of developers are ignoring Vista (this contradicts other studies, however).

Dignan claims with cutting off XP, most of us will fall in line with the latest operating system, corporations included. I beg to differ (again, especially with Windows 7 due out as early as 2009), but what about you?