As most of you probably know, for a variety of reasons the planned phase-out of Windows XP from Microsoft's distribution channels was pushed back from January of this year until June 30. Now, not even out of January yet, there are already calls for the deadline to be pushed back even further.

The spearhead of these efforts is an online petition crafted by Infoworld, which has garnered around 70,000 entries so far (with the only hedge against duplicate votes being a simple e-mail address check; not terribly effective. On the other hand, many signers are IT managers responsible individually for hundreds of machines, so perhaps it's a wash). As expected, these run the gamut from hardcore Vista haters to pragmatic business executives. A decent snapshot of perspectives are covered in this CIO.com article.

I don't think for a minute that any online petition is going to change Microsoft's business plans one whit. If you want to do that, you need to vote with your dollars, not a made-up e-mail address. The intriguing question now is, are enough people doing so that the XP retirement will in fact again be delayed, and perhaps indefinitely?

More speculation after the jump.

It's hard to make any sort of reasoned argument for or against Microsoft keeping XP on the shelves on an economic basis because we don't have the numbers to do so. It's possible that not even Microsoft has the numbers. If their recent Q2 earnings results are to be believed, Vista isn't doing terribly. On the other hand, part of the game dealing with Wall Street is massaging and spinning the numbers and we have no idea if that's as good as expected or comparable to XP sales on a percentage basis (come to think of it, those numbers aren't broken out between Vista and XP as far as I can see... it just says "Windows software." Microsoft's own release on the earning's announcement has similarly careful wording: while saying that "Microsoft's Client business has grown over 20% on average..." it then goes on to give the number of Vista licenses that have been sold; but despite the implication, it never explicitly states how much of that 20% Vista comprises. Hmm.)

But there are other arguments to be made and I think they are compelling. Vista's ongoing compatability and usability issues are a minor inconvenience for home users, but a significant expense for corporate IT providers, who have to replace hardware, ramp up testing, conduct additional training, and staff up support departments to deal with the issues. The thought that this is being foisted on them prematurely, with the only available alternative being yanked away from under them, isn't going to engender any good will toward Microsoft among them. If the company is truly satisified with corporate adoption of Vista so far, and confident that the issues will be addressed, then they may hope to power through this downcycle. But if they aren't, and can't be, as I believe is probably the case, then they need a plan B at this point.

One petition signer likens the whole fiasco to the New Coke / Classic Coke blunder, and asks where exactly that New Coke is these days? I don't think that Vista is going to go the New Coke route, if for no other reason than I think that no one in the executive structure at Microsoft really has the cojones to admit to a mistake of that magnitude. But I do think it's possible that Vista is another Windows ME, and if that's the case, then it may well be possible that the company, as it did with ME, keep marketing Vista as heavily as ever on the home front, but for corporate and other serious customers quietly continue to provide and support XP until the next version of Windows (Windows 7, we're apparently calling it) appears.

This may not be so far-fetched. Mary Jo Foley is making an educated guess of a 2009 release date, and further says that Windows 7 may well be the "Anti-Vista:" predictable, compatible, familiar, and unburdened by performance-sucking feature bloat. Microsoft remains committed to avoiding any comment whatsoever on Seven, but this is entirely in keeping with the theory; if it is coming, and coming soon, they may be content to let rumors and telegraphed moves (such as extending the XP availability horizon again) assuage corporate IT decision-makers but avoid cannibalizing other markets which may continue to adopt Vista without a clear XP-successor being announced.