Dell has had a not-too-subtle dig at Microsoft by continuing to offer XP Professional as the pre-installed operating system on its new computers, despite yesterday’s supposed cut-off date for XP sales.

As a sop to the millions of people who have shunned Vista and prefer XP, Microsoft decided to allow manufacturers to offer XP as a ‘downgrade right’ – Dell have rebadged this and are offering Vista as a ‘Bonus Disk’, implying (quite correctly) that it doesn’t see XP as a downgrade at all.

In fact, Dell’s blog is fullsome in its praise of XP and calls Vista ‘its harshly debated successor’.

Looking for a new computer? Get a Dell.