Microsoft should keep Windows XP available until at least 2009, not end the majority of sales on June 30 as currently planned,
said analysts at Gartner and The Burton Group.

"A good rule of thumb in any OS transition is that you have to have the original and new products available for at least two years to handle customer [migration] needs,"
said Richard Jones, a Burton Group vice president and service director.

But Microsoft gave customers just 11 months in its original plan, in which new XP licenses would have ended on Dec. 31,
and even the additional six months that Microsoft granted when it changed the date to June 30 is not enough, he said.