[LINK] Windows XP in business

[Karl Auer]

On Sat, 2012-05-26 at 10:53 +1000, Ivan Trundle wrote:
> We're using it for 4000 employees at Airservices Australia.

As the first version of Windows that was remotely usable for business
purposes, and because it was followed by the unusable Vista, which gave
XP a longer window (heh) of opportunity, XP gained an enormous foothold.
Upgrading away from XP, even though it would now, generally speaking, be
worth doing, has become an absolute nightmare, and one that deepens with
every passing month.

Getting out of XP can be done, but a lot of nettles need grasping. Those
who upgraded to Vista, painful and expensive though that was at the time
(enough to be regarded by most as a major mistake), ended up much better
placed to continue on to Win7.

Of course, the right direction to upgrade in is away from Windows, for
example into desktop Linux. A heterogeneous network is safer, the
education curve is minimal for most "ordinary" users, malware is
(almost) a non-issue, security is a lot easier generally, and the whole
licensing hairball vanishes. Support is available from a multitude of
suppliers. And if there is some app that absolutely must run on Windows,
you can probably run it seamlessly in a virtual, or (if you are lucky)
even in Wine.

Regards, K.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer

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