While most organisations have started migrating from Windows XP, many underestimate the time and work necessary to complete their migration project.
So says Ian Jansen Van Rensburg, senior systems engineering manager at VMware Southern Africa. Microsoft said it would stop support for Windows XP on 8 April this year, but later rescinded the decision, extending support to July 2015.
"Microsoft has provided support for Windows XP for the past 12 years. But now the time has come for us, along with our hardware and software partners, to invest our resources towards supporting more recent technologies so that we can continue to deliver great new experiences," the software giant said in a statement.
Come July next year, technical assistance for Windows XP will no longer be available, which includes automatic updates. Microsoft will also stop providing Microsoft Security Essentials for download on Windows XP.
Gartner estimates that more than 15% of midsize and large enterprises will still have Windows XP running on at least 10% of their PCs by 8 April this year. The market research firm warns that not having support means organisations' PCs could be vulnerable to attack. And because new vulnerabilities are always emerging, this could affect Windows XP, the company adds.
Without security, technical updates and bug fixes, Windows XP devices will be more vulnerable to security threats, says Jansen Van Rensburg.
Recent research in the UK found that only a third (35%) of organisations are confident they will meet the deadline. "Of the few who have already completed their migration (a mere 6% of organisations in the UK), it had taken them between a year and 18 months to do so. Speaking to customers locally, the numbers here in South Africa are not dissimilar," Jansen Van Rensburg notes.
"There's no single reason why organisations have delayed migration. Many are concerned about the disruption it would cause to the business, while over a third are concerned it will be too expensive to migrate."
Outsourcing all the support functions for Windows XP to an IT services company is an unlikely viable alternative, as the service provider will be charged the same escalating fees and will need to pass these on, he explains.
"The stark realisation for the majority of organisations is that, ultimately, there is no choice. It's not a viable option to stay with Windows XP," adds Jansen Van Rensburg.
He urges that operating system migration is a complex task, encompassing a range of different activities, with testing and application remediation the necessary first step. "Many of the organisations that began late are still caught up in the compatibility evaluations required to make sure their applications and end-user capabilities can be delivered in Windows 7 or Windows 8. Others have completed the testing, but have yet to begin deployment," he adds.
Alongside this, Jansen Van Rensburg says user data must be backed up, the new operating system installed cleanly, applications re-installed and then all user data/settings restored. Done manually, this can typically take around four hours for each PC - that's half a day of IT effort and half a day of lost productivity for the user.
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