14 DAY TRIAL // Windows XP continues to be the second most popular operating system worldwide, despite Microsoft’s efforts to move the majority of users to a newer platform, be it Windows 7 or Windows 8.1.
In an interview with ZDNet, Jay Paulus, director at Windows Commercial, explains that Windows XP comes from a time when security threats were “fundamentally different,” so the operating system can no longer cope with today’s requirements.
“At some point there is only so much you can do to patch the system until it becomes the time when you need to move onto a new foundation. Just purely from a security standpoint,” he says.
“It's just from a different era. It's very popular. It established a huge user base and there's a lot of it still out there, but it is time to move that thing along.”
At the same time, Paulus explains that Windows XP had an amazing evolution over the years, even though at first everybody hated the operating system. Just like it happens right now with Windows 8, that is.
“When you look back at some of the reviews when Windows XP shipped, it was reviled because it had some UI changes, it had some changes to the start menu, it changed the windowing, it put some rounded corners on things,” Paulus pointed out.
“People just hated it. They thought, ‘It's such a big change. People are never going to learn’ — and now look where we are.”
Windows XP currently holds a 28 percent market share, which makes it the second most used operating system worldwide, just after Windows 7, which continues to dominate this particular side of the industry. Windows XP support, however, will come to an end on April 8, so users still running it clearly need to choose a new operating system in the next couple of months.