We’re seeing a conflict in software. It is still evolving in its structure and architecture. In fact, visible changes are necessary to drive new sales. On the

We’re seeing a conflict in software. It is still evolving in its structure and architecture. In fact, visible changes are necessary to drive new sales. On the other hand, users of that software are happy with the mature functionality it provides. There’s nothing important the average office workers needs for their daily work in Windows 7 that’s not present in XP. Most companies would be perfectly happy to stay with XP if it were still maintained. You wouldn’t see so many holdouts otherwise. Adobe has switched to a subscription model, Creative Cloud, for its Creative Suite. You can still buy the software, but the subscription costs less. The people in Redmond would be smart to consider that business model. It would maintain revenue, in fact make it more regular. By eliminating the feature treadmill, it will allow them to slow-feed gradual changes to the users.