Dell Australia have found a loophole in the Microsoft licensing that allows business customers to downgrade from Windows Vista to its better supported and more comfortable predecessor. Dell is actively promoting this licensing loophole to help promote PCs installed with Windows XP after Microsoft’s official cut off date.

Dell are not only promising to keep selling PCs running XP till at least 2009, they are actively telling their huge chain of retailers to continue selling Windows XP run machines. These actions show a significant shift in Dell’s relationship with Microsoft.

Many feel Microsoft is facing the backlash after many years of exploiting their position as the number one supplier of operating systems, with PC manufacturers now starting to play hardball. It seems it has not been forgotten that during the hugely publicised ‘antitrust’ trial in America, IBM revealed that Microsoft delayed giving them access to Windows 95 simply because they refused to kill off their own OS/2 operating system.

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