Print - Microsoft Preps 2004 Ad Blitz for Windows XP

Hundreds of millions of customers run the Windows XP client today, but enterprise adoption and retail sales have lagged. Microsoft's solution to that problem is a multipronged advertising blitz centered on the XP updates the company has released since the OS's debut 3 years ago. Microsoft wants you to know that if you haven't looked at XP lately, you might be surprised by how much the product has improved.

The ad blitz will begin in June with the release of XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), one of the largest and most important updates Microsoft has ever created for any of its products. Once seen as a simple collection of bug and security fixes, XP SP2 took on new importance last summer after various high-profile virus and worm attacks. In response to those attacks, Microsoft moved the product into its main build lab and grafted to XP a slew of security-oriented updates that were originally envisioned for Longhorn, the next major Windows release.

Since October 2001, Microsoft has also been busy with other XP updates. The company has released two low-priced Microsoft Plus! packs, one designed for digital media; one major Windows Media Player (WMP) release, with a second to follow this summer; a major new release of Windows Movie Maker; three Fun Packs that extend XP's digital-media experience with new capabilities, animations, graphics, and sounds; new applications such as Microsoft Windows Journal Viewer; and various Microsoft PowerToys, screensavers, and other add-ons.

The company has also shipped several major new XP editions since 2001, including XP Media Center Edition (XP MCE) in two versions, with a third due in late 2004; XP Tablet PC Edition, with a second version due in June; and XP 64-bit Edition for Itanium systems, in two versions. Later this year, Microsoft will ship XP 64-Bit Edition for 64-Bit Extended Systems, which is designed for AMD Athlon and Opteron systems and Intel x86 64-bit systems.

Unlike the Macintosh OS updates from Apple Computer, Microsoft's sole remaining commercial competitor in the desktop space, most of the XP updates have been free or inexpensive. Most of the software listed above is free or ships with new PCs, except for the Plus! packs, which cost roughly $20 each.

Microsoft has planned more updates for late 2004, and after XP SP2 is in the can, the company will begin a marketing campaign that's designed to educate end users and IT administrators about the importance of installing XP SP2. An update to the Windows patch-management infrastructure will make it easier for customers to install security updates. Starting with XP SP2, for example, Windows Update will automatically aggregate critical updates to make them easier to download, and the system will push Automatic Updates more aggressively, advising users to not only let XP download those updates automatically but install them as well.

Microsoft representatives I've spoken with have been reluctant to discuss details of the XP advertising blitz. But the campaign is expected to include refreshed XP retail boxes that will include the slogan "Windows XP Service Pack 2 with Advanced Security Technologies;" retail point-of-sale, print, TV, and Web advertising; and, by late 2004, a second round of promotions based on the XP Reloaded theme. XP Reloaded, which was once to have included an interim XP version codenamed Oasis, will now concentrate on the many consumer-related updates Microsoft plans to ship in the second half of 2004, I'm told, although those plans are constantly being evaluated. The XP Reloaded promotions will coincide with the releases of XP MCE 2005 (code-named Symphony), Media Center Extender devices, Portable Media Center devices, and the next WMP version.

Yes, XP has changed allot, but I fail to see how all these digital media advances are going to make the OS more appealing to Enterprise computer users.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE tell me that one of the "updates" they will be releasing in '04 is an iDVD competator! I still have seen NOTHING on the PC side that can match it. MovieMaker 2 rocks, but I don't use it because I cannot make a GOOD DVD with the movie when I am done editing it!

I hope they keep the box design preety much as it is, they're the nicest to date, plain, simple, colourful and easy to distinguish.

I think all these changes are good for everyone, especially people that dont know much about computers. The more that can be done to stop the spread of viruses and malware, the better for everyone IMO. Plus this will make people more secure by default while still letting them enjoy many aspects of the PC and Windows

As someone who both uses and administers XP Pro and Panther boxen every single day, I have to say that SP2 is way way overdue; Automatic Update functionality is not close to 100% reliable, and since you mentioned OSX update costs, it's worth mentioning that each point update on that platform has resulted in a more responsive computing environment, compared with the extremely vulnerable-to-exploits environment on the XP side. For example, I think I see something like 20 patches today alone for Windows...truly the OS equivalent of swiss cheese! Editor's note: Actually, it's four patches. The nice thing is, Microsoft won't charge us for these updates in 6 months, and XP was already responsive to begin with. OS X was, arguably, the longest beta test of any software project, albeit one users had to pay for on an almost yearly basis. It's nice to see they finally got it right, four years later, however. Enjoy that. ;) --Paul

uhhhm i should HOPE this thing is free.. it's a security fix.. plus a bunch of superfluous crap that your ideal $500 dell owner couldn't care less about? Digital Media! Please!! I just wanna open my email without getting an e-mail bomb from the taliban...! Seriously..this is awful.. I just can't imagine what it must be like to have to spend ALL THAT TIME fixing your glitchy comp.. um thurrot.. figure out how much you make per hour of work and then figure out how cheap windows is... For MS's sake.. There is no X86 Mac OS.. so it's pretty hard to call them a competitor.. the Apple polish requires MUCH baggage... (ie a new piece of hardware to use it). Oh well.. you'll see some of that brush metal in Longhorn in about 3 years..

Great article. Nice to get 'sneak previews like this. I saw this article as a result of the "new" personalized Google search tool. Also, I'm a huge Movie Maker fan and seeing that a new 'major' release is terribly exciting for me. Regards, -Bart.

Yeah, Mark, I've been saying the same thing. MS is pushing eye candy because that's what sells. They wonder why more businesses aren't upgrading to XP, when it's quite obvious that they have no need to the XP's bloat when, over NT, it offers very little that will help someone work. As I've said here in the past, an attractive interface does not mean a more productive experience. This is fine for home users, but for people who sit at thier PCs for 8-12 hours a day, we need features that help us get more done. First fix all of the obvious bugs, for free, and improve the performance (Windows should be flying on today's hardware, but that just isn't so). Editor's note: Enterprise users don't rush out to stores to upgrade. They're pushing consumer oriented stuff, because that's what will get end users to pay up. It makes sense. XP already includes a number of huge enterprise-related improvments over 2000, and will include even more when XP SP2 ships. --Paul

Mark, did you misread the article, or just not choose to mention the "Advanced Security" features? Just because MS introduces enhancements that are aimed at different audiences simultaneously doesn't make them irrelevant. Stick to the facts -- the new NX processor protection, revamped firewall et all all make for great Enterprise features.

Mac OS X updates are free. Major upgrades to Mac OS X cost money as Windows XP did for Windows 2000 users. The Mac OS X name will be around for a while. If you look at the Darwin system, it goes from 10.0 being 4.0, 10.1 being 5.0, 10.2 being 6.0 and 10.3 being 7.0. They are major upgrades with completely re-written code. Editor's note: Yes, "major upgrades to Mac OS X cost money as Windows XP did for Windows 2000 users," but the difference is Apple has charged that fee THREE times so far, to once from Microsoft. It's a big difference ($250 to be exact) for what should, arguably, have been cheap or free to the end user. You're paying for refinements. --Paul

I agree with Victor. For those who are concerned that Microsoft will charge for SP2: Don't worry it will be available from Microsoft at no charge.

Since our company actively supports many client types each day, I assess were are in a good position to provide a balanced perspective opposite XP, SP2 and other OS'es. First, securing XP even without SP2 is not at all hard; relatively simple steps are required to ensure a safe and reliable computing environment for all users - this is particularly true within the enterprise where Group Policy Objects and Active Directory make it quite easy to control client systems. Beyond this, and switching back to XP as a personal client vice a very manageable enterprise client, is "the" characteristic that distinguishes Windows Xp from all other OS'es - XP is "Discoverable." More to the point, XP is the very smooth execution of many discoverable experienced based tasks that have a) a know beginning, b) and known and desired end result and c) consistent and predictable support for the user as one experiences a session from A to B. These two reasons illustrate why Windows and XP in particular, are so successful. Other OS'es, however strong in some areas, are simply not discoverable - one either knows them or they do not. For most people and most companies, the lack of discoverability prohibits their selection for broad and even personal deployment. Longhorn will extend this ability beyond the LAN, WAN and CAN and allow for discoverable experiences between trusted sources of all types. Finally, the US NSA, IDC, ICSA and MITRE all rate Windows as a Group IV OS - the Linuces and most of the code that makes up OSX has not yet been allowed to even apply for Group II consideration. A rather small part of OSX is derived from FreeBSD - please look at its evolution carefully, before flaming me. Thank you for your time.

An "enterprise" which was serious about productivity would have Intel 865, dual monitor, WinXP Pro PC's with Office 2003 in every cubicle. A 5% improvement in productivity for an office worker, who costs $100,000/year, is $5,000! -- approximately a one year payback. Holding onto a four year old Win2K box, or horrors, a Win9x box, is simply foolishness. WinXP is so "commonplace" that we forget how marvelous it is. Maybe, SP2 will be the enhancement that finally gets "enterprise" to move.

I tried installing an evaluation version of Windows 2000 Server on my 1.4GHz Celeron XP Pro box, and in PCMark04 it came out with a 31% performance improvement. It felt much more responsive too - I'm now seriously considering switching to Windows 2000 Professional SP4.