So let's wait six years and continue with XP, or in my case 2000.
Why?
MS has produced some good and bad products, are you saying that the only way to make money is to produce bad products?
No, just mediocre products.
Examples can be seen in automobiles, which, in the "good" old days, relied on "annual updates" to keep in business - but got wiped out by the introduction of good old US quality principles being imported by Japan.
Many years ago, a friend and I "discovered" a basic principle of purchasing anything: There are two viable strategies and one less viable. The viable ones are: buy cheap and replace often; or buy quality and keep it. The less viable is to buy mediocre; it will not last, as will the quality product, and costs more than the cheap one. Unfortunately, it is often difficult to find quality products, regardless of cost. And there is poorly-made junk with big price tags, sold to those who believe that price=quality.
Back to the subject at hand: when everyone who can use one has a computer, the only sales are going to be for 1. replacement; and 2. added features. With an OS, which never "wears out" in the mechanical sense, the "added features" provides the only incentive for customers to buy, and the only route for the manufacturer to generate sales. Clearly, there can be the appearance of an economic incentive to market an adequate system, then sell upgrades with additional features, as opposed to just selling one with the features in the first place.
That being said, Microsoft has not followed this practice closely; XP in it's original form would not be acceptable to the vast majority of
present users; the
free features of SP1 and SP2 did not generate any revenue as such, and were not sold as upgrades. They could have been. Maybe MSFT is not all evil.
Unlike other major revisions, however, the "great leap forward" of Vista is not evident enough, if present at all, to warrant buying it at this time, IMHO.
Compare it with Half-Life 2 and you'll see what I mean. Both are 3 years old. I can play HL2 at 1680x1050 with everything but AA set to high, but couldn't even play Halo 2 at 800x600 with everything set to low.
