Dell to compete with iPOD, again?

It seems that Dell is going to make another run at the music player business. Last year, year Dell acquired a little music software outfit called Zing which in 2006 was demonstrating a concept design that essentially put Wi-Fi streaming inside a portable player, thus giving it the ability to, among other things, play Sirius streams.

One of our favorite things is to listen streams from Last.fm and Padora and Sirius streams aren't on the iTunes App Store. The good thing about Dell that it may work with Rhapsody, which isn't a bad service at all and also to include streaming capabilities, or might launch it's own music service.

If it supports MP3 music files, as it presumably would, it would support music sold on Rhapsody, Amazon, eMusic and whoever else has decided to go the MP3 route. The problem, will of course, come down to marketing and positioning aganst Apple, and we all know how that tends to work out.

It could be a trial balloon meant to test market potential. It’s not like Dell doesn’t have on its plate, though CEO Michael Dell is promising a “big second half” of the year. A music player won’t get Dell there, that much is certain.

Windows XP Support till 2014

Microsoft has finally given in to public demand. The company has decided to offer technical support for Windows XP with updates and security patches for an extended period until April 2014. However, it will not go back on its decision to discontinue Windows XP sales after June 30.

This means that after June 30, Microsoft will stop distributing Windows XP as a stand-alone product, as well as stop licensing it to PC manufacturers like Dell, HP, Lenovo, and others. However, it doesn't mean that XP will be disappeared somewhere because some stores work through their inventories.

As per earlier's announcement of Microsoft, Windows XP will be available with 'nettops'.

Microsoft's move to extend the deadline for technical support is primarily influenced by large business customers, who haven't yet upgraded their systems to Windows Vista. I don't think most of the companies will prefer switching to Windows Vista because of its heavy requirements. But if that's not the case, they have to wait for Windows 7, which is expected to be released in 2010.