It seems with the lack of expected Vista sales occuring despite MS virtually giving the program away, and folks turning to Linux instead of Vista, Microsoft are cutting the price of XP to stay in the market.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7395687.stmMicrosoft is cutting the cost of putting Windows XP on low cost laptops. The price cuts will only be available for ultra-portable laptops that meet a strict set of specifications. The move is widely seen as an attempt by Microsoft to bolster its market share in one of the PC industry sectors showing growth.
The low prices apply only to machines that have no more than 1GB of RAM; a hard drive up to 80GB in size; a processor running no faster than 1GHz; a screen no larger than 10.2in (25cm) and no touch screen.
Microsoft is offering XP on such devices because they are too low-powered to run Vista - the latest version of its Windows operating system.
To be honest if Vista is so hungry for more hardware you would expect super performance, instead what it has to offer in return is minimal, there seems to be nothing that anyone actually wants or needs, no wonder folks are no longer wasting time and effort with what looks like an O/S that turns your PC into expensive paperweight.
Users of Linux based systems will be pleased to hear since vista came out that Linux operating systems have been in greater demand and from the news above Microsoft is obviously feeling the pinch.