[LINK] Windows XP in business

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

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

Interesting discussion. Just to put some general numbers around current
Operating System use, (that is, not specifically business use) then the
before-mentioned StatCounter notes some OS numbers. Maybe of relevance:

http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-ww-weekly-201121-201221 (Worldwide)

Win7 ~ 50%, WinXP ~ 32%, WinVista ~ 8%, MacOSX ~ 7%, iOS etc ~ 1-3%


http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-AU-weekly-201121-201221 (Australia)

In Au, about the same, except WinXP and MacOSX are closer at ~ 16% each.


> 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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