XP not dead

The long goodbye for Windows XP starts this week and the industry at large is still grappling with its continued, strong popularity - or the unpopularity of its successor, says CRN.

Dell will sell certain models of its Inspiron PCs pre-loaded with Windows XP for a few days longer than it initially expected - but after 26 June it's still going to operate under its Vista-with-downgrade-to-XP option strategy.

In an online promotion, Dell said it will sell several desktop models with XP through Thursday. Dell says the XP deals are being extended as far out as 26 June "by popular demand".

Asustek, best known these days for its mini-laptop Eee PC, is moving to expand Eee brand with an iMac rival, a wireless gaming controller and a mini-desktop PC, says TG Daily.

The manufacturer confirmed it will launch the Eee Monitor in September, an all-in-one computer built into a monitor designed to challenge Apple's iMac concept, the Eee Box mini-desktop PC for Internet-related activities and the Eee Stick gaming controller.

Eee Monitor is attracting the most attention at this time. Instead of offering innovative hardware features, the device is squarely aiming for iMac customers and will challenge Apple's system with a lower price.

At a press conference hosted by Samsung, Dell storage director Hubbert Smith this week told reporters that while flash memory-based solid-state disk drives (SSDs) offer performance benefits across many notebook PCs, enterprise servers, and other applications, he believes Samsung will also keep relying on lower-cost, high density hard-disk drives (HDDs) to meet users' capacity needs, says BetaNews.

Smith cited a study from industry analyst firm IDC released last May, that predicted enterprise storage will split into two separate product segments over the next few years: "performance optimised" and "capacity optimised".

Meanwhile, Dell officials informed journalists that, although SSDs remain higher in cost, Dell is now offering them as an option to notebook PC users, especially for those needing "ruggedised" drives, without any moving parts.