Discussion on:

Will end of XP support spark rash SaaS and Office 365 decisions?

If someone buys a windows XP licence, shouldn't that entitle them to use it as long as they wish? Maybe Trading Standards should look into it.

First, good luck in getting an XP license now.
Second, the end of support doesn't mean the end of usage. I knew someone who still has a computer with Windows 98 - support that died a number of years ago.
Maybe you should read the license agreement of software.

We can use XP for as long as we like. Since XP has the broadest driver support of any windows version, it will take a really long time before there will be any problems because of that. As far as Microsofts support is concerned, I do not see any problems with that either. I don't even know anyone who uses Microsofts security measures alone, and very few at all. Third party antivirusprograms and firewalls will work for as long as there are customers. The hype about having to abandon XP just because Microsoft stops supporting it is nothing more than a very sneaky type of advertising. As an example; I have one computer with DOS 5.0 for various testing purposes and for playing a few vintage games, and it works perfectly, regardless that Microsoft stopped supporting that version for donkeys years ago..
So, don't be fooled by the hype, You can use XP for as long as Your computer works. The only reason I see for really having to buy a newer version is if You have to buy a brand new top-of-the-notch computer.
XP will live for a long time still. In many companies too.

Hp has announced that some new printers [released this year] may not include Windows XP software. For a plain black & white laser printer, you can substitute an older model. For a MFP/All-In-One, I don't think so.
As I said, end of support is not end of usage.

The best OS in the lot is XP. I've had fewer problems with XP. The Vista sometimes goes on a coffee break, and I have to recycle it once or twice to get it moving again. Windows 7 is pathetic. At least once a week it gives a sensational bug such as a sticking control button. Ticked the boss lady off when it went into a steady erase and couldn't stop it in time before it erased everything she was writing. ( Never saw flames coming out of her ears before) Finding out the hard way, pressing the escape button works wonders. As far as I can see XP is the only one program I'm not having any problems with. It just seems like that every time window Vista gets an update, it gets worse.

There are way too many Specialist programs that simply do not run in XP Mode or anything newer than XP. If you are stuck with one of those Specialist Programs you'll keep using XP just the same as those who are still using 98, NT4 or W2K.

Makes very little difference to the systems that run these OS and even the CAM Devices that I support are still on DOS so what's the real problem?

Sure for a Run of the Mill Office who only used a couple of the Packages in Office there is no excuse not to already have changed but for everyone else it's nothing but another Big Yawn and more of the same that has been heard so often when previous versions of Windows has Ended Support from M$.

Of course if you are willing to pay you'll still have a few more years of Support but I personally don't know any business in that boat. They pay their IT people to lock their systems down and make them secure so you take other steps and remove them from direct attack.

Col

There shouldn??t be any legal limitations preventing someone from starting an XP support business...

...but it will...

According to a recent communication to Microsoft Partners, 1 in 5 Enterprise Customers are already on Office 365, and over the past year the number of small to medium business deployments of Office 365 is up 150% - it is one of the most successful and fastest growing Microsoft Product lines ever. In fact, last year there were more Office 365 deployments than Exchange deployments.

I agree with most of the comments already posted, in that CIOs should be uncomfortable if they have not already outlined a plan to move away from software tied to Windows XP, but I know from my own experience in large organizations that budgeting often tends to be more tactical than strategic, and that year-in and year-out planning often does not provide a budget for major shifts, until it suddenly becomes mandatory and a budget for a special project is then allocated.

Is it more cost effective to "keep up with the technology" rather than letting yourself get into a position where you no longer have a choice? I don't really know. There's more than just technology costs in "keeping up" - there's a huge element of People costs. So, organizations tend to stick with what's been working...

I think the biggest challenge to CIOs in any size organization today is learning how to manage change efficiently and to be nimble. It's certainly "easier" to just stick with what works, but if you can build a truly nimble IT organization that is also good at communicating and helping manage the People side of change, then I think the future of your organization is much more secure.

There is no reason to migrate from XP because microsoft stops putting out 'patches'-XP was the apex of microsoft's software engineering prowess-you can keep using it perfectly well with just the normal IT maintenance and a firewall.

This is a media-fomented non-issue.
Ok, first of all, those units are going to function with no support. They just won.'t be getting MS upgrades / tweaks etc. The hardware will eventually give out and with the replacement will come a new OS. Unless you build your own computer from parts (not that big of an issue), it's virtually impossible to buy a computer without an OS already installed.
As far as an 'Office Suite' support is concerned, still a non-issue. There is very little of importance that newer MS Office Suites can do any better than MS Office 2003. I mean, very simply, do you really, really NEED those newer / enhanced features?
Do I have a viable alternative? YES !!
Any computer that will run Win XP will run on UBUNTU. This OS will cost you $0.00. It also includes a very competent office suite, Libre Office. Go ahead, google (or Bing) it and see for yourself.

I do agree totally with your statements above and want to illustrate this. My former Ministry decided this year to migrate from MSO 2007 to MSO2010 (some of us moved straight from MSO 2003 to MSO 2010). Large ministries have a procurement branch. Surprise, many of our suppliers requested a MSO version 2007 if not 2003 of the released documents.

I learned from a former DISA adviser the following "philosophical policy" : "Never surfs on the edge of technology" ... that was in the '90s. Of course outdated today.

All my XP boxes running dedicated tasks, such as large scale WiFi, have ISO images available in the unlikely advent that they'll be taken down or simply fail. With top of the line HP hardware available by the truckload for $50 a piece none of these boxes are going to be updated in my lifetime.

Microdinks never improved anything about their OS after XP. Why should anyone upgrade? Just change OS go to Linux or Apple and dump the unstable crap from Redmond. Between Windoze 7 and the POS HP Pavilion lap top I just got rid of to some fool on CraigList I will never even look over my shoulder at the world of PC. Soon tablets will rule and no one will need Microsuck.

My older laptops run just fine on XP but can't support the memory required for Win7 let alone the processor demands. A newer laptop runs fine on Vista but the hardware is not totally supported by Win7 even though memory and processor requirements are more than adequate.

Good old XP 32-bit meets most of my everyday business needs. Just because Microsoft is ending support for it next year doesn't bother me in the least -- unless antivirus vendors and third party web browser vendors stop supporting it. But I consider that that not likely to occur for quite some time. Besides, antivirus software is more proficient at protecting 32-bit Windows than 64-bit versions of Windows. Malware which is specifically designed to infect 64-bit Windows won't run on 32-bit Windows. And XP is an ever shrinking target for malware authors. With good AV software plus two periodic full backups of my XP computers, and I am and will continue to be good to go. And of note, I always run quick scans with two additional stand-alone AV products before performing full backups in order to make sure that my continuously running AV program hasn't missed anything. This way I know that the full backup which I am about to perform will be clean. And on the bright side it generally is much easier to disinfect an XP machine compared to later versions of Windows. Maybe it will be best that XP's code will be carved in stone once support ends. At least then AV vendors can tailor their products to look for any specific attack methods which are discovered and which will try to attack XP's code which will be carved in stone next year when Microsoft support ends.

Ideally, Microsoft should create a SP4 for XP with all updates and security fixes which were rolled out subsequent to SP3 before they terminate XP support. But of course they will never do this since doing so would be not be in Microsoft's financial interest of seeing all XP users upgrade to Win7, Win8 or the future Win9 since Win8 is a bomb. Yet can bet that third parties definitely will -- or at least provide the tools to do so on your own and then burn what would be the equivalent of a SP4 CD.

What I am getting at is that it really doesn't matter how much Microsoft updates Vista or Win7 or Win8 to fix newly discovered vulnerabilities. If you aren't deploying really good AV software but are instead using AV software which simply relies on definitions and heuristic analysis but without additional cloud based scanning by super-servers, and training your staff how to use it and interpret any warnings, then your office network is eventually going to get infected. If you don't prohibit your office staff from plugging in their own portable hard drives or USB sticks, then at some point you are likely to get infected. If you don't use alternative web browsers to IE such as Chrome or Firefox with free add-ons which can be set to disable Java, Javascript, Flash and Silverlight, and you don't teach your staff to only enable these features when required and only for specific trusted web sites, then your network probably will get infected. If you use wireless routers configured with older and very weak encryption protocols which can be cracked in seconds so that you can support the wireless on older laptops instead of properly updating the wireless device drivers on those older laptops, then you are going to get infected. If you let your employees connect their cell phones directly to your wireless network, then you are going to get infected. If you don't check and if necessary update your network servers at least once a week, then you are going to get infected. If you don't teach your employees about phishing, then you are going to get infected. The list goes on.

In other words, it isn't so much what Microsoft does to further secure their operating systems, but all of the other things which your IT department should already be doing to protect the network, the servers, and all of the other computers on the network. the weakest link tends to be the employees who use your computers. Yet this link is the one which tends to be mostly overlooked.

I have just bought a Win 8 PC. Being retired I watch my costs so my old Win XP PC will die but I will use hyper-v to run XP on the new PC. The advantages are many.
1 I keep the use of two programs which have no useful Win 8 equivalents.
2 I am not tied into the MS ransom system with Office as Libre Office handles all the MS Office formats unlike MS Office 2003.
3 I will use any modern programs that I need on Win 8.

Who says that just because Microsoft will not support XP that everyone somehow must change? When you think about it, XP has been a solid platform for so long that many that are using it could realistically continue using it for a long time after support ends. Some other good news is that once support ends the hacker would bees are going to be focused on the next big thing and XP is going to follow in the steps of 98 and fall off the radar, making it the safest most productive software that Microsoft has ever created. Looking at what Windows 8 is looking like it will probably be the last.

As far as Microsoft is concerned, the support hasn't been too good for years. Half the time their updates eff up the system, so that will be no loss. Given how bad Vista was/is, and Windows 8 even worse, I can't see my upgrading my XP computers any time soon. I will migrate to a linux system first. W7 is only acceptable because it ironed out some of the catastrophic unuseability of Vista. By the way Microsoft is marketing a sort of stripped down XP for cheap computers in developing countries, so I can't see XP finishing as soon as they say. Microsoft marketers speak with forked tongue.

Yes, you can use XP as long as you like, just disconnect it from the internet and don't expect to upgrade software in the future.
It will be open season on XP for thousands of hackers around the world next year. Exploits will come to light, propagate around the Internet and when your computer gets infected MS will just tell you to upgrade.
I work for a financial company, our software has to be updated every year, support for XP will no longer be there. Soon newer accounting packages will no longer install on XP.
On the home front I'm not going to want my less tech savvy family members to be surfing the web on unsecured operating systems. It will cost me more in time to clean them up every month or so than to get them upgraded.
XP is 13 years old people, upgrade! And for those that can't afford to, or don't want to, I suggest moving to Ubuntu (or other linux package) or the new Chromium OS.

Why do so many of us feel like we are being "sucker punched" rather than receiving value for our money and time?

It's worth considering.

This sounds very similar to the angst associated with Win95, and the more expensive migration paths that it brought with it.

Catch22:
(1) Drivers work under old OS (whatever it is)
(2) Sooner or later, patch support or plain old wearing out of devices will force their upgrade...with new features + new processor/OS/Memory/Storage/Power/...etc.

Trying to avoid the future is pointless.

ON APRIL 8, 2014 ALL YOUR XP MACHINES WILL EXPLODE AND SHOOT DEADLY LASER BEAMS INTO YOUR EYES!!!

Ummm... yeah. Most IT departments that haven't migrated by now are managing their own OS support already, so really, the fact that MS is abandoning the platform just means... ummm... oh, yeah; We don't have to worry about working around updates that turn automatic updates back on anymore.

Freaking TOTAL Non-Issue.

LOL, I agree, fear is the driver of this media ad campaign to go out and buy more equipment. If it works, keep using it... My office has upgraded a few machines, but only because the motherboards went out....secretaries have learned to do a 'save as' in an older format so we can all read what they wrote in word....just a habit to learn when saving...we have a cross platform of several different versions of office and we get by just fine. As a small business owner/ computer tech for home users, the only thing I see coming is the browser will have to be something other than IE. I have an older gentleman with win 2000. I had to teach him how to use Opera, and he can do anything he needs to online with it...just sayin', don't let rampant consumerism take over....Microsoft and Apple have enough of our money, don't they?

I agree with Regulus. I have Vista, XP and Ubuntu - but I use Ubuntu and Libre Office for at least 95% of my time.

Microsoft are busy killing off the Golden Goose of operating systems.

KJR

I got a new computer in December with Windows 8. I've been using it for a while and I have gotten used to it. So when I say it sucks, I think I know what I am talking about. I still have an XP box that I use because Win 7 and 8 won't run the applications it has on it. Or there are no drivers for the components which I am not getting rid of.

As far a support - I can't remember the last time we needed any. Many of our clients run XP simply because - it works. It gets the job done and it is all that is needed. You don't need a chain saw to cut butter.

With very rare exception, who would want Office 365 in the cloud? It is an excellent way to lose control and security over your propriety data and files. Stick with XP, or upgrade to Windows-7.

If the EOL for XP is like it was for Win2000, the firewall and antivirus companies will drop XP as a supported platform within a couple of months after MS drops XP support. Of course there have been hacks to keep Win98 upgraded and able to support newer programmes (Revolutions Pack 9), the same goes for Windows 2000 (Known Dlls Wrapper). But in a business environment, these hacks wouldn't be acceptable.

Seems to me some of these big enterprises (and regular users) that absolutely *must* have WindowsXP compatibility should be putting their financial support behind the ReactOS and Wine projects, the same way companies lend support to Linux development for their own benefit. That way the enduser individuals and companies can get themselves off the MS upgrade treadmill, yet still have actively supported platforms.

The truth is that XP or what ever windows version used is irrelevant. Most of today's technology is coming to the desktop via the browser and most browsers are not IE versions. Most back-end servers, especially in the business world are Linux as most web-servers are. I have just finished upgrading fifty percent of a client's site to Ubuntu Linux and the client is really happy...everything works. Microsoft would be well advised to continue sales of Window 7 as few businesses are interested in Windows 8 (even though you can get to a Window 7 type UI)

Jim Lawrence

We are still using XP as we have a lot of legacy hardware and software that will not run on Vista or Win7. As the PC hardware is ageing then we are now routinely virtualising and running them under VirtualBox. Our XP systems will live on for a while yet.

We are still using Office-2000 as it does everything we need too. New systems get Libre Office. As our internet connections are not reliable then Office365 is not an option either.

Sorry Microsoft, you are slowly losing our business as we are not prepared to become a revenue stream.

Seems to me that Microsoft should watch out. They've gained a bit of credibility compared with the past and now they risk losing it again. As a comparison I wouldn't dream of using windows on my phone or tablet. I don't like Apple so I use android, in common with three quarters of the world. So Microsoft's revenue stream is office products and a new OS every couple of years. But Vista, W7, and W8 have made any sensible person fight shy. I have two netbooks with identical specs. One runs XP and the other Vista. The Vista one is slow and clunky, almost unuseable. The XP one just works. Everybody in the world knows this, and Microsoft also knows this, otherwise they wouldn't be using a version of XP on computers designed for developing countries. Sorry to go on about this, but Microsoft needs to wake up before it's too late.

Until the fire Ballmer and Jobs takes back over Microsoft is screwed. Everything done since the switch has been a pathetic fail of crap.. Bad advetising killed the zune, the kin was a Ballmer baby, wp7 failed, wp8 fail. windows 8 metro fail, windows surface rt fail.... It goes on and on under that idiot.

I think you meant Gates.

I do tech support on a helpdesk, and the company I work for does not allow archived emails to be moved from one Outlook profile to another. They are stored locally on the hard drive, and if the user needs to have a new profile created they are gone. This is because of a security policy that was made because of long past breach.

With something like Office 365 a company could either benefit or lose big. If they use 365 as-is, they probably would be fine. If they choose to store certain data locally or must migrate data from 365, they could be rendering themselves defenseless till the migration fully transitions. Considering how difficult it was for them to migrate their legacy users and upgrade to Windows 7, I think they better stick with whatever plan they put into place.

I think 365 is perfect for professionals, and the advantage of working in the cloud is clear. I cannot imagine why anyone would want to work outside the cloud. That is like having walls without a door.

the company you work for might be in the inverse of Macrohard...

The conversation seems to have turned into a lovefest for XP, but that wasn't really the point of the article, so I'll try to bring it back on track.

The topic of the article is: When companies finally do move on from XP, will they prematurely jump on the SaaS and Office 365 bandwagon without thinking it all the way through? Of course, the answer is not a definite Yes or No. (When is any situation truly binary?) The answer is: some will, some won't, and some will get rained out.

The real benefits of SaaS and O365 boil down to measureable lower short-term license costs and theoretically lower long term support costs verses overall lower license costs. For companies that try to keep up with the latest and greatest, SaaS/O365 might be a good choice. But, since we're talking about companies still on XP, that's not really the group we're talking about. These are folks that stick with what works, whether by choice or due to forces caused by internal or external requirements.

Its going to come down to the preferences of each decision maker. Some will go for the short-term benefits; others will prefer the lower overall license costs, although the gotcha of licenses being tied to the hardware will certainly take some of the shine off of that. MS is definitely trying to push everyone to the cloud because of the boost to their overall bottom line. Unfortunately for them, it will push a few to consider alternatives such as Linux and one of the OSS office suites and many will take that plunge, but I doubt it will be enough to bother MS.

I think many companies will begin to look more closely at Linux when it comes time to consider if they are going to move to Windows 8 and along with that they must decide if / how they will upgrade to Office 2013. The reason is Windows 8 is more of a media version of Windows and more of a GUI upgrade than anything else. The only problem with Linux is the cost a company saves in licensing is brought up considerably by user training and support. Most people do not care what they use to do their job as long as it is not an obstruction instead of a resource to them. Many working professionals will never be inclined to embrace the technology they must use at work.

and most of the users need re-training after a holiday anyway...

Yeah, they have some initial classes in the company I support, but for the most part they just hand their employees computers and send them off into the wild. User skill (or lack of) varies widely from barely able to use a keyboard to users who call in and can tell you exactly what needs to be done but they need an admin login to do it.