Why was the Windows XP lifespan so long?

Strong business customer influence

Corporations and small business love predictability. They tend to try to minimize big changes, at least at the operational level and gladly muddle through with the status quo, particularly if it's good enough to get the job done reliably.

Over the past dozen years, Microsoft did a pretty good job providing timely updates for old reliable XP, while at the same time exploring new user interface (UI) designs and the latest multiprocessor architectures as versions progressed up through Windows 8.

Performance was a hotly contested issue a decade ago, but not so much anymore. Business people buy machines to accomplish work and get paid. Sticking with Windows XP features made sense for a lot of small and midsize businesses because they matured quickly and updates didn't change the way people worked.

Windows XP also proved to be great for uneventful rollouts. IT techs liked the fact that the OS could run multiple versions of the same application without much worry that one would break another. For some reason, if a new version of some app died, you'd always have a fallback position.

While Windows XP features didn't change that much, hardware has rapidly improved.

New hardware

Through the mid-2000s, hardware made big leaps, quickly moving to 64-bit and multi-core processing. Windows XP ran well on these new machines, taking advantage of the higher clock speeds and larger memories.

Support staffers liked the fact that the underlying design of XP and its UI remained unchanged while becoming more stable over time. Any trouble spots became well-documented and fixes were readily available -- everybody knew how to fix Windows XP problems.

Over the past six or seven years, hardware capabilities have gone by the wayside. Most people aren't very impressed with a 3.0 GHz clock speed or having 8 GB of RAM. The corporate and business people want stability and a good return on investment, which means buying hardware and keeping it for as long as it can do the job well. The hardware has developed to such a state as to be both fast and reliable.

Half a decade ago, companies realized that they could lengthen the replacement cycle because the quality of the machines always seemed to get better and XP wasn't changing radically.

Sadly, the economy took a nosedive in 2008 and hasn't yet recovered. Companies continue to downsize, budgets have shrunk and everybody has had to tighten their belts. Of course, that situation is all the more reason for many enterprises to put off purchases of the latest hardware and the associated version of Windows.

Easy money

Microsoft realized years ago that not everybody wanted the latest and greatest products all the time. Business users especially wanted reliable, repeatable results without surprises.

So why fix something that isn't broken? And, as long as Windows XP and the fully-depreciated desktop still did the job, why give up a good thing?

In addition, Microsoft Office worked in perfect harmony with the OS which was another reason for the long Windows XP lifespan. Sure, there have been some upgrades over the years, but if you used Office applications 10 years ago, you can certainly pick it up and use it very effectively today.

What's next?

Companies are now faced with some computing challenges. They can upgrade their hardware and broker deals for newer versions of Windows or hold on to XP, without Microsoft's official support, until the hardware stops working.

Lot of companies are examining tablets and smartphone-based apps as a way to transition away from the traditional fixed desktop system. There's a lot of interest in, as well as fear of, bring your own device practices. The market seems to still be up in the air on how this will play out, though, especially in the areas of standard office-based computing tasks, point-of-sale applications and systems such as automated teller machines.

So, it will be an interesting time ahead as companies move off of XP and onto the newer versions of Windows. Many will successfully evolve over to cloud-connected tablets and smartphones, while some will move to Linux- or Apple-based notebooks.

Even as technology relentlessly moves on, the end of Windows XP support is a milestone as we step into the future.