My suggestion for Microsoft. Make every version of any M'soft operating system available (legally licensed) over the web for a small licensing fee. Then, when one needs to upgrade hardware due to machine death, have the new computer (running Windows 8 (or later for the future)) set up the version the buyer of the new machine needs to run for legacy purposes, in a virtual machine.
Or if not Microsoft, some other cloud service that makes the appropriate deal with Microsoft.
Of course there’s the question of where the data will live. In the cloud? Locally? Both?
Good idea. That might help. Although running as virtual machine never seems to work quite right.
Funny how “the hardware outlasted the software.” Usually it is the other way around with PCs.
The problem with that model is support. How many devs should they have writing patches for their 13 year old OS? How many techs on phone or web support should be trained in their 13 year old OS? How much downward compatibility should the new software have with their 13 year old OS?
Supporting multiple versions of the same software is incredibly expensive, each additional version adds time to training, complexity to your dev environment (gotta keep able to build the old stuff), and you’re sapping resources that could be used to add features to the next version. Dropping XP drops 2 OSes from their support list (because there’s actually two XPs out there the 32 bit original and the 64 bit “upgrade”), that’s millions of dollars saved. There’s no way your model would keep XP profitable. It’s ancient, way past time to kill it, anybody that still has a business need to keep it needs to hoard hardware for it, or make the switch to VMs.