Paul Thurrott: Windows XP Service Pack 3 Not Coming

[Anusha]

The title for this newspost is easily the most significant of all 12 Short Takes Paul Thurrott has put together for the week of April 9. "If you were looking for any glimpse into the mind of Microsoft, this is it: The company has completely abandoned Windows XP, and it has absolutely no plans to ever ship an XP SP3." The majority of the Short Takes have already been posted up on our front page, the rest are simply speculation on Paul's part. Here are the individual headlines:

* Microsoft Considers Near-Free Zune Model
* Microsoft Releases Home Server SDK
* Hungarian Notation Creator Heads to Space
* Microsoft Threatens Poster of Vista SP1 Info
* The Truth About Vista SP1
* And What About Windows XP Service Pack 3?
* Microsoft Preps Longhorn Server Beta 3
* In Wake of Lawsuit, Microsoft Changes Vista Logo Branding
* Microsoft Moves Hotmail Plus to 4 GB as Yahoo! Goes Unlimited
* Acer Notebook Sales Surge
* Sony Cuts PSP Price
* Microsoft Improves Xbox 360 Warranty... Again

Read it here: WindowsITPro (http://www.windowsitpro.com/Articles/ArticleID/95725/95725.html?Ad=1)

[Anusha]

Here's what he says:
And What About Windows XP Service Pack 3?
And while I'm ranting a bit, let's dredge up Windows XP Service Pack 3, which was delayed from 2005 to 2006 to 2007 and now to 2008. If you were looking for any glimpse into the mind of Microsoft, this is it: The company has completely abandoned Windows XP, and it has absolutely no plans to ever ship an XP SP3. My guess is that Microsoft will do what it did with the final Windows 2000 Service Pack: Claim years later that it's no longer needed and just ship a final security patch roll-up. This is the worst kiss-off to any Microsoft product I've ever seen, and you'd think the company would show a little more respect to its best-selling OS of all time. But the reality is, Microsoft is looking ahead to new revenue and not behind to money that's already in the bank. And though hundreds of millions of people will be running XP for years to come, despite Microsoft's best efforts at selling them a later Windows version, the company has absolutely no plans to actually support those customers. This flies in the face of its publicly-stated life cycle support plans. And it really freaks me out. It should freak you out as well.