Fyo,
I think one way for to go for the industry would be to somehow with Microsoft to come up with XP Mark, a benchmark that would test the performance of OfficeXP and Windows XP (and its components). A MSFT blessing for something like this would be a win-win for just about all involved. It would make the buyers think of upgrading, because they probably don't have "XP" anything on their computers. It would be a win for MSFT, because it would advertise XP stuff, and it would be a win for consumer, because there would be some push to take into consideration performance of the computers, and the OEMs would have to respond quicker by upgrading to newer technologies, such as DDR memory, faster hard disks, more standard memory.
Another way the consumers would benefit is that they would have 1 reliable number to look at, rather than a confusing combination of components, speeds, CPUs, memories etc.
The benchmark could even be distributed with the OS, an it could be one of the utilities installed. It could be a tool to evaluate and recommend upgrades. For example, Microsoft could say that the minimum requirement for new version of software or OS is say 40 XP Marks, and everyone could check their machines.
There was a time some time ago when advertisers in Computer Shopper used to advertise their computers by showing a benchmark result of something like WinStone or WinMark.
Joe |
