Bott: News of a discontinued Windows XP in 2008 is pretty much bunk

Here in the ZDNet blogosphere, Ed Bott completely busts the myth that companies should start stocking up on Windows XP because Microsoft is going to discontinue selling it early next year. Bott writes:

It’s true that as of January 31, 2008, Microsoft will no longer distribute Windows XP licenses to its largest customers, the so-called royalty OEMs like Dell, Toshiba, Gateway, and Lenovo.....But Microsoft will continue selling OEM copies of Windows XP via its System Builder channel through January 31, 2009....there are no restrictions or licensing requirements to prevent you from purchasing a system builder copy of XP and building or refurbishing your own PC....Meanwhile, retail copies of Windows XP that are already in the channel will continue to be available, just as copies of Windows 2000 are today. Microsoft officially stopped selling retail copies of Windows 2000 on March 31, 2004, and system builder copies stopped shipping on March 31, 2005, more than two years ago. But it took me all of 30 seconds to find a half-dozen legitimate resellers who still have shrink-wrapped Windows 2000 boxes on their shelves

Down Chicken Little. Down.