So I was browsing the internet to find the purchase price for Windows XP for the purposes of installing it into a virtual machine. (Looking for the cheapest price)
The search resulted in an interesting discovery. It is cheaper to purchase Windows Vista than Windows XP! Imagine that - Microsoft's newest "flagship" product is of lesser value than a product thats 8 years old.
In my opinion, that says a lot about the situation with Microsoft. It really calls into question their ability to produce a state of the art operating system.
P.S. I will buy the more expensive, but better, Windows XP for the virtualbox.