Xerox has pulled the plug on employees running beta versions of Windows XP after the document company experienced several major outages over the past 10 days.
Kara Choquette, a Xerox spokeswoman, confirmed that the company last week sent email to its entire 50,000-strong US workforce warning them not to install Microsoft's Windows XP beta on Xerox computers.
"We have experienced three major network outages in our office since Friday, March 30," Choquette said. "These were directly traceable to the installation of the Windows XP beta code on devices attached to the Xerox production network."
And Xerox is playing hardball, barring all future installations of XP until further notice and informing staff to immediately remove all installed versions of XP. Employees who disregarded the order face possible disciplinary action and will have to bear the costs associated with removing XP from their systems.
Crashing everywhere
"All three network outages occurred in one building in our offices and were the result of running XP on certain equipment from a third-party vendor," Choquette said. "As such, even though the equipment is the problem rather than the software, we decided that removing the software was the best way to resolve the situation."
While she declined to name the vendor, Choquette said Xerox had informed it of the incompatibility of its hardware with XP, and moves were afoot to correct this.
She said Xerox is committed to the Windows platform and has run a number of different operating systems, including Windows NT, 98 and 2000. But she did not know if the company plans to upgrade to XP when it became available toward the end of the year.
While she was also unsure if Xerox was an official XP beta tester, Choquette added that "we have a lot of engineers who like to play around and test all sorts of beta software. But we do not allow employees to use non-standard software technologies on machines on our network and, given the problems experienced in our California office, we are enforcing this with Windows XP."
