Government signs £5.5m Microsoft deal to extend Windows XP support

[Derangel]

Let go and grab W8. No thanks. The government made a wise choice in spending this money otherwise it would have cost much more to have upgraded every XP machine in the government's jurisdiction. Also XP was expensive so the UK govt wants to get every pennies worth back from M$. 

 

And this prevents them from having to spend that money anyway how? The extended support is only for a year. They will still have to upgrade by this time next year. They're only delaying the inevitable.

[Snickerzz]

or they could have spent half that on getting there software up to w7...........

[kuddlesworth9419]

And this prevents them from having to spend that money anyway how? The extended support is only for a year. They will still have to upgrade by this time next year. They're only delaying the inevitable.

Yes but do you know how much it would cost to upgrade every computer in the UK government to W8, which is an OS they don't like or want. In a years time W9 will probably be out from poor W8 sales. By that time the UK govt will invest in W9 and stick with that for 10+ years.

[StingBull]

XP WILL LAST FOREVER FOR IT IS THE ONE TRUE OS OF GOD!!!!

[Derangel]

Yes but do you know how much it would cost to upgrade every computer in the UK government to W8, which is an OS they don't like or want. In a years time W9 will probably be out from poor W8 sales. By that time the UK govt will invest in W9 and stick with that for 10+ years.

 

Next year will be three years for Win8, but I doubt we'll see Win9 this early next year. It's possible though. I should also point out that Win9 won't be released due to low Win8 sales but because MS has a three year OS cycle. Still they should have been planning for this upgrade a long time ago. Everyone has been procrastinating so much.

[kuddlesworth9419]

Next year will be three years for Win8, but I doubt we'll see Win9 this early next year. It's possible though. I should also point out that Win9 won't be released due to low Win8 sales but because MS has a three year OS cycle. Still they should have been planning for this upgrade a long time ago. Everyone has been procrastinating so much.

Really it's been 3 years already. Time has fled by. It's funny how it's been 3 years already and W8 still isn't doing well. It's nice though that W7 will be getting DX12 especially as I don't want to upgrade to an OS I don't like. Same though as I am probably going to change OS to Linux once the game support gets larger. All I really want it Planetside 2 on Linux.

[JantsoP]

Just use Ubuntu LTS already for fucks sake.

Well the new LTS comes next week i think. If i recall correctly

[Kyuubixchidori]

Hardware is typically upgraded every 1 - 3 years. They lease  it on a 3 year depreciation cycle.

 

Every school that I know of here leases computers from companies like Viglen, RM or Dell. I dont see why a hospital or other government organisation would be any different.

Here in the US, we dont lease computers. I know, different country yeah. That being said, our computers say Windows 8 on them, but they are running win 7. Maybe their hardware/software wont run on windows 7, and their needs have been the same, so they had no reason to upgrade?

[thexzenon]

Moving to Linux is the worst possible thing. People will have to learn how to use it. Software will probably cost a lot and then people will need to learn how to use it as well. I don't get the Win 8 hate (hey, it rhymes :lol: ), it's a solid OS and beginning with 8.1 the Start screen is perfect. I liked XP a lot, but it needs to die already.

[Mooshi]

Windows 7 is already becoming the 'new' XP..what are they doing, seriously?

[Blue fellow]

Because they will still need support while they are upgrading. It isnt an overnight process.

 

Ok. But ending support for XP wasn't an overnight process either. For example, I know Windows 8 will stop being supported on 1/10/2023...

[Aok]

This 5.5m only lasts a year and part of the requirement is for anyone that uses it to have an upgrade plan so all it's doing it delaying spending those hundreds of millions and adding another 5 million on to it. If they had actually had put together plans when Microsoft announced the EOL date for XP this wouldn't be a problem.

 

Yes but it'll take a year to upgrade all systems so it needs to be extended 

[mr moose]

Really it's been 3 years already. Time has fled by. It's funny how it's been 3 years already and W8 still isn't doing well. It's nice though that W7 will be getting DX12 especially as I don't want to upgrade to an OS I don't like. Same though as I am probably going to change OS to Linux once the game support gets larger. All I really want it Planetside 2 on Linux.

 win 8 growth is more than win 7.  Sometime in the middle of last year windows seven growth started to slow.  I guess if the UK have set lease cycles then they only need xp support to outlive the last lease cycle. for all we know that could be this time next year.

 

And can people please drop the linux thing FFS,  If it was cheaper, better faster, easier or any of the above they would already be using it.  Do people in this thread honestly think they understand the finances of the UK government better than the UK government? 

[dalekphalm]

 win 8 growth is more than win 7.  Sometime in the middle of last year windows seven growth started to slow.  I guess if the UK have set lease cycles then they only need xp support to outlive the last lease cycle. for all we know that could be this time next year.

 

And can people please drop the linux thing FFS,  If it was cheaper, better faster, easier or any of the above they would already be using it.  Do people in this thread honestly think they understand the finances of the UK government better than the UK government? 

Agreed very much on your last point. People forget that a large company (Or even larger government) needs to have support. Support contracts with Linux distro's cost money.

 

Then there's training. How many of their users already know how to use Linux? Less than 1%? Less than 0.1%? Probably closer to the 2nd figure. Also how many of those users are "computer literate" in the sense that they can learn easily? VERY FEW! Anyone that does corporate IT support can tell you that the average user doesn't even really know how to use Windows properly, let alone learning something totally new like a Linux OS. That training? Costs money. A LOT of money. They would easily spend far more on training then they would on software upgrades to a newer version of Windows.

[TopWargamer]

It would cost a hell of a lot more than £5.5 million to overhaul their IT systems from XP to whatever newer version of Windows they pick. Probably hundreds of millions.

They're going to have to do it eventually. May as well get it down now. 

[Phillyphries]

Try training your entire staff to use Linux.

 

I wouldn't even call that free, I call that a waste of time lol

[GamerDad]

Yes whatever.

 

It is still true that it would cost more money and time to upgrade than it would to pay £5.5 million for extended support while they switch. Linux could possibly cost more as they would need to train staff to use the new systems.

You have it backwards.

It would cost MORE and take MORE time to pay 5.5 million for extended support while they switch rather than upgrade.

The cost of upgrading is the SAME now as it will be next year. Windows 7 prices are proof of that. The only difference is the spending of 5.5 million for extended service, a cost they wouldn't spend if they upgraded on time. This has been said several times before your post and continues to be overlooked in the 2 pages that followed it.

[Lightning]

Let it go, let it go. Don't hold XP back anymore!

Edit: Didn't think people would get the reference

WANNA BUILD A COMPUTEEERR

[MasterJV]

WANNA BUILD A COMPUTEEERR

I knew someone would get the reference.

[mgsstar]

Guess they didn't want to upgrade their systems as it would cause a pretty long downtime. Just give up on XP  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bVAoVlFYf0 (hyperlinked to avoid taking lots of space with one post)

[b45op]

So yes they could switch to Linux (Red Hat is a billion dollar company doing enterprise linux) This will cost in support contracts, infrastructure changes, training... The list goes on.

So yes they could switch to Windows 7/8/9 but again support contracts, infrastructure changes, training, etc.

 

WHen you are dealing with enterprise level or Government level IT it is not as simple as saying "install teh ubuntus!!!" because there are a lot of legacy stuff that you or I have never even heard of never mind thought of. I work with around 200 computers a small setup but even then the upgrade to windows 7 had to be passed by my boss, his boss, finance and finally it came to us guys who had to go round and upgrade the computers. this is tenfold in any government, Have you ever tried to get anything done that involves a government agency, it takes a loooong time.

 

So yes they have paid 5.5mill on extended support and they probably do have an upgrade solution in place already but you know budgets and man hours.

[samyG]

 

 

Windows XP is supposed to be dead next week. But the Dutch and British governments have both inked deals with Microsoft to continue to keep it on life support, at least for them—under Microsoft’s Custom Support program.

On Wednesday, ComputerWeekly reported that the UK government agreed to pay Microsoft £5.548 million (approximately $9.1 million) for continued support of Windows XP, Office 2003, and Exchange 2003 for all British public sector customers. On Friday, the Dutch government cut its own “multi-million Euro” deal with Microsoft for custom XP support of over 30,000 computers still running the Windows XP operating system.

Those deals may be just a drop in the bucket in comparison to what the US government may have to pay for support of the hundreds of thousands of systems still running Windows XP and other end-of-life software. Despite years of foreknowledge of the end of support for the operating system, there are still a large number of systems running Windows XP within government, including computers on sensitive networks and embedded systems. Many hospitals in the US still use Windows XP on workstations and healthcare devices because software developers have not had their products certified by regulators for use with later versions of Windows.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/04/not-dead-yet-dutch-british-governments-pay-to-keep-windows-xp-alive/

[Tea1337]

Once again I think people need to let go of this software, I mean I understand that it will cost a lot to upgrade but soon hardware and software compatibility will run short.

[epeglab_1_]

Its all a game, you upgrade then it becomes non-existent, then you upgrade again. Just saying that you could still save all those computers by switching into a vm and running that precious into the win xp. You would no longer need Microsoft if I am correct.

[Yoinkerman]

lol it's nice to see incompetent governments everywhere.  XP has only been EOL for what, like 5 years now?