Recently I noticed that Microsoft had put a stake in the sand and (once again) announced the retirement of Windows XP, this time with a target date of April 8, 2014. Given all the other times Microsoft has announced the retirement of Windows XP, I suppose they wanted to avoid April 1st. But I digress.

In light of this announcement, I wondered how the FOSS community could leverage that large number of Windows XP customers who have not migrated to another Microsoft product, such as Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8. Those users had many different Microsoft alternatives from which to choose, but they stayed with Windows XP. Since Windows XP was released in 2001, that means they are using the same Microsoft operating system technology that existed when Linux Pro Magazine was young.

When Microsoft users start planning to move to newer Microsoft technology, updating their (very expensive) operating systems and apps, getting new hardware on which to run their Microsoft software, paying for ever more restrictive Microsoft upgrade licenses, getting the training needed for the new versions of proprietary software, and making sure their data and applications all migrate properly – that might be the time to suggest a migration to Free and Open Source Software.

[...]