Pentagon Orders Windows 10 to be installed to all 4 million of it's computers within the next 12 months

[RagnarokDel]

The Pentagon has ordered Windows 10 to be installed to all 4 million of its computers within the next 12 months.

 

 

Quote

Microsoft (MSFT, Tech30) announced Wednesday that it just scored its biggest Windows 10 customer yet. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter has ordered all 4 million of the Pentagon's PCs to be upgraded to Windows 10 within the next 12 months.

The Pentagon's announcement represents a huge psychological milestone for Microsoft. The U.S. Department of Defense is one of the largest, most cost-sensitive and complex agencies in the world.

 

Quote

any of the 4 million PCs are difficult to upgrade, because they're installed on submarines or airplanes or deployed on the battlefield. The Pentagon is also hugely concerned about security, which is why it has traditionally been among the last of Microsoft's customers to upgrade to a new Windows operating system. It had been waiting for all of the new OS bugs to be worked out first.

 

http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/17/technology/windows-10-pentagon/

 

that's gonna be a serious clusterfuck. That brings it to 16000 computers a day. I hope for microsoft that it goes smoothly.

Edited February 18, 2016 by GoodBytes
Formating fix

[PlayStation 2]

insert generic tinfoil comment here

[vanished]

Well, I've heard some of them are still running XP or older so this is long overdue

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

Just now, Dan Castellaneta said:

insert generic tinfoil comment here

The Pentagon is going to be spying on themselves now.

4 minutes ago, RagnarokDel said:

-snip-

Just hope they don't use the built in upgrade functionality. Watch it outright fail if they did. 

[GoodBytes]

1 minute ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

Just hope they don't use the built in upgrade functionality. Watch it outright fail if they did. 

They can't. They are considered Enterprise. Only home and small offices gets it for free.

 

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

13 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

They can't. They are considered Enterprise. Only home and small offices gets it for free.

 

Off Topic: That's always puzzled me. What is the main reason to choose Enterprise over Professional? The company I've used to intern for used Windows 7 Professional while my University uses Enterprise. 

[rEaGeNeReary]

22 minutes ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

Off Topic: That's always puzzled me. What is the main reason to choose Enterprise over Professional? The company I've used to intern for used Windows 7 Professional while my University uses Enterprise. 

Licensing. It's You can use your own KMS to do activation.

[Guest]

damn even the Pentagon couldn't resist the windows 10 upgrade. 

[KuJoe]

There's a really high possibility that they aren't going to upgrade existing computers and will most likely replace them with new hardware with Windows 10 pre-installed. That's how they do it at my work and we have a fraction of the budget the US government has, in all it would be much cheaper to replace hardware than to physically go through and upgrade 4 million machines (assuming the upgrade doesn't go 100% smoothly which it will not and assuming that the hardware they are using now is 3-4 years old and likely nearing the end of the warranty if not already out of warranty). Also it's so much easier to place an order with HP/Dell for a few thousand desktops/laptops/tablets (assuming each office/department handles their own procurement).

[BobbyG2]

1 hour ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Well, I've heard some of them are still running XP or older so this is long overdue

[Dabombinable]

Plot twist, some of MS staff work for China's government.
 _{/s, i hope. If you can read this you don't need glasses}

[Doobeedoo]

Wow that's many computers for them.

[GoodBytes]

8 hours ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

Off Topic: That's always puzzled me. What is the main reason to choose Enterprise over Professional? The company I've used to intern for used Windows 7 Professional while my University uses Enterprise. 

Ah very simple. Volume License.

Company gets to pay a much lower amount than paying each system a copy of Windows (even if it is OEM System Builder license), BUT, each computer MUST be on the domain network to remain activated, and the companies pay a monthly subscription fee, which companies loves, as it is an expense that is never unexpected, so when it comes to financial reports or shareholder meetings, they don't have to go: "This yearly quarter, we made a remarkable and unexpected 2 million dollars! But we lost 1 million dollar because we upgraded our system, and that cost 3 million". It is a headache that no company wants to deal with. Also,  this expense fall with "maintenance fees" in their financial statement which is expected amount compared to similar businesses.

 

 

[Sauron]

This sounds like a weird decision to me. Upgrading their employees' personal computers is one thing and perfectly reasonable, but upgrading a submarine? That thing isn't connecting to the internet anytime soon, what is even the point if it has worked for 15 years? (and why use windows on a submarine in the first place?)

[Sauron]

2 hours ago, Dabombinable said:

 _{/s, i hope. If you can read this you don't need glasses}

I must admit reading it on my uhd monitor from 40 cm was a challenge worthy of my 20/20 eyesight

[samcool55]

Well good luck!

 

This won't go well, but at least it's going to be done. Or trying to.

[mikat]

they can spy on themselves

[Albatross]

Of course Ash Carter would decide to do this. I just hope we don't hear one day about something catastrophic happening because they upgraded.

[BuckGup]

9 hours ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Well, I've heard some of them are still running XP or older so this is long overdue

It wasn't because they never got around to it I can see the pentagon doing this but the military will stay on xp as it supports all their programs and they have a lot of programmers that would normally be out of a job. I just can't wait until they realize it isn't secure or the horrible memory leaks and compatibility errors

[RuffRuffmcgruff]

I would not want to be in charge of that rollout that's  365 headaches on the way. 

[Stuff_]

3 hours ago, SamStrecker said:

It wasn't because they never got around to it I can see the pentagon doing this but the military will stay on xp as it supports all their programs and they have a lot of programmers that would normally be out of a job. I just can't wait until they realize it isn't secure or the horrible memory leaks and compatibility errors

This is not true, overall. 

 

[RagnarokDel]

7 hours ago, Dabombinable said:

Plot twist, some of MS staff work for China's government.
 _{/s, i hope. If you can read this you don't need glasses}

[RexinOridle]

14 hours ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

insert generic tinfoil comment here

 

I don't know, if now government will have Microsoft's data or Microsoft will have all Government's data.

[Dabombinable]

15 minutes ago, RagnarokDel said:

So you do need glasses since you resorted to that

[vanished]

6 hours ago, SamStrecker said:

It wasn't because they never got around to it I can see the pentagon doing this but the military will stay on xp as it supports all their programs and they have a lot of programmers that would normally be out of a job. I just can't wait until they realize it isn't secure or the horrible memory leaks and compatibility errors

Until they realise 10 isn't secure? Lmao if that was ever a concern, they definitely wouldn't have been using XP to begin with