El Reg reports that Microsoft claims to be sticking to its timetable for shutting down XP.
No fewer than three people told me yesterday, “This means I have to buy that Mac Book Pro this year. They can’t be alone. I have several co-workers running Vista running on laptops, and even without the overhead of a VM, it’s slow.
Thus, an investing opportunity presents itself — buy a number of copies of XP this year, and then resell them at a profit. There are, of course, many risks in this strategy too obvious to name, but hey, money is risk.
If during the holiday shopping season, you see a run on copies of XP, take note.
Actually, money is supposed to be unrisky, albeit not the the risk-free rate of return :)
No, no, the risks aren’t about money. This risks are about value. Let’s suppose that I go buy N copies of Windows on December 29, planning to resell them at a premium after they’re not available. If Microsoft decides on December 30 that they’ll continue selling XP for another six months, then I have a problem. Worse, Microsoft might decide to resume XP production in March because of the success of my own secondary market.
Forgive me more pedantry, but I think you mean cash, not money. Money is risk. Cash is a way of reducing risk in money by lowering rate of return, which is exactly my point. Essentially hoarding a product that can be produced at small marginal cost, is a very risky strategy.