For a little more clarity, we'll write a little more than the interview on what this means.

Microsoft, as with any classic software business, looks to make revenue through updates on their software. Where Microsoft has been successful is having their OS and Office product pre-installed on the majority of new PCs. Just looking at the people visiting our website, about 88-percent have MS Windows based machines.

Of those Windows machines, up until June 30, 2008, 80.5-percent were Windows XP and 13-percent Vista. In the month of July, that number shifted to 77.5-percent XP and 17-percent Vista (with the rest older MS OSs). So Vista is showing some growth as the total Windows population dropped only by 1-percent. That 1-percent went to Apple's Mac OS with a strong growth in Intel based Macs (meaning new Apple purchases).

So what should you do? If you need to buy a new PC and you have applications or legacy hardware that you need to keep, you may want to stick with XP. However, you need to downgrade as new PCs will not have the option of XP. But if you are getting a whole new system and software that is compatible (or all new), stick with Vista. The bugs are fairly ironed out and all new systems are built for Vista.

Now, it would be bad for me not to mention your options other than Windows. You of course can switch to Apple Mac OS X, which it looks like people are doing from our website traffic. The strength of Apple is that the software and hardware are made by Apple so no compatibility problems. Prices are comparable and the systems are very trendy. The main weakness is that there isn't as large of a user base so repair shops aren't quite as easy to find. But the community is strong and vocal.

The other clear options, with a paltry 1-percent of the market, is Linux. I have to admit that we have looked into switching to Linux and open source applications as there is little to no cost compared to the other choices. However, there may be a training issue with the users. So for the near future, we will probably stick with XP like most businesses and Apple OS X for our video editing machines.

Only time will tell if there will be any large shifts in users. But for now, it appears Windows XP users are moving to Vista with a few moving to Apple.

A final point is that Microsoft is working on a new OS slated for release in 2009/2010 that is either an update of Vista (re-labeled I'm sure) or based on Singularity, a non-Windows based OS. But the future could be something completely different with the strength of Internet applications, the size of Google and technology changing every day. I can't wait (partially a facetious comment)...

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