Peter Coffee on Win98 and Sex

Peter Coffee, one of my all-time favorte tech columnists, has great articles in the current issue of eWeek on Microsoft’s termination of support for Windows 98.

The article starts with one of Peter’s all-time best lines: People in technology industries talk about exponential growth the way teenagers talk about sex. Everyone pretends to be having it, everyone wishes they knew how to get it and none of them fully understands the implications.

From there, he talks about the pros and cons of trying to support your old customers when you, the software company, are dealing with exponential growth. His conclusion: “Windows 98 has more than a dozen users, to be sure, but it also does some dreadfully stupid things with memory and task management that we do well to purge from the software gene pool. The reliability and security of the platforms that we offer to future users depend on deep-sixing dead tech.”

Go Peter!