Microsoft on Custom XPs

Thanks Bink for this one that he saw at www.wmlah.com. Last year, Microsoft merged its two Windows lines--9x/Me and NT/2000--into one, Windows XP. Now the company is launching three new XP-based products. To learn why, PC World editors Harry McCracken and Yardena Arar interviewed Microsoft's top Windows guy--Jim Allchin, vice president for Microsoft's Platforms Group. Here's a partial transcript of the conversation.

Q. Is there some big strategy here?

A.Yes, absolutely. After 11 years we finally got to the NT code base for basically everyone. And the benefits of that [include] higher reliability, more stability, security, and the like for consumers. It's obviously better for IHVs [independent hardware vendors] because they only have to write one driver and it will work everywhere. And now we have the flexibility to target specific customer needs very quickly without having a splintering of the code base.