So when USB 2.0?
The Microsoft representative would not say when the company plans to offer USB 2.0 with Windows XP. Microsoft "recognises the importance of USB 2.0 as a newly emerging standard and is evaluating the best mechanism for making it available to Windows XP users after the initial release," the representative wrote in an email.
But MicroDesign Resources analyst Peter Glaskowsky believes Microsoft will be able to add USB 2.0 support to Windows XP fairly easily. "The vast majority of code is already in the (operating system), so all that is really needed are new drivers," he said.
For now, consumers will have to rely on companies supplying the USB 2.0 components that go into PCs to supply the drivers. But even some of them don't have a clear timetable for Windows XP support.
If or when Microsoft chooses to support USB 2.0 is not so important as why not now, Reynolds said.
"It's the same thing with Bluetooth. That hardware isn't ready either," he said.
The message is clear, said Kay. Going forward, Microsoft is going to be more picky about the kinds of technologies supported in Windows, "even if it is something they back."
USB hasn't always been kind to Microsoft in the past, either. One of Chairman Bill Gate's most embarrassing public moments came during his keynote speech at the spring Comdex trade show in Chicago three years ago, when he was demonstrating USB support in Windows 98. After plugging a USB scanner into a test PC, the system promptly crashed while displaying the familiar "blue screen of death" error message, a moment replayed on TV news shows for days.
News.com's Richard Shim and David Becker contributed to this report.
