Partners rejoice at Windows XP demise

While Windows XP is soon going to vanish, DQ Channels sopke to partners to find out what they feel about the development and how is it going to effect their businesses

Time to make some money

Starting April 8, 2014, there will be no more patches or updates including security ones issued for Windows XP. This is despite the fact that Windows XP still had an estimated 30 percent share of all desktop operating systems as of February 2014 (source. netmarketshare.com). Making a calculated guess, the figure in India would be close 50% at least.

Microsoft and its partners have a lot of work to do to try to get more businesses off Windows XP. The vendor had made a major push at its Worldwide Partner Conference to enable partners with tools, marketing messaging and incentives to capture what it sees as a $10 billion global opportunity move the legacy commercial install base still running Windows XP to a modern and supported Windows OS before support ends, and businesses are vulnerable to exploit and other threats.

Understanding "End of Life"

 

This brings an end of era of one of the most widely used products from Microsoft. With this development, now customers will not get non-security hotfixes, no-charge incident support, warranty claims and all extend support will end that includes all windows updates and paid support. Interestingly, for many who are not aware, Microsoft had ended its mainstream support ended in 2009 itself.

To understand the flow of events, following the chronological line up of milestones as how it came by.

April 2011: The final month that Microsoft allowed new PC sales to have direct installations of Windows XP. However, there were few exceptions wherein certain large vendors still had rolled out PCs with Windows XP for quite sometime.

April 8, 2014: Per Microsoft's official Lifecycle policy on Windows XP, extended support for the platform will be stopped from this day.

January 2020: The final month that customers on Windows 7 will have "downgrade rights" to move back to Windows XP. Microsoft extended this date as a courtesy to business customers who have definite business requirements for the OS. By no means is Microsoft offering this as a green-light to continue using the OS this long for normal day-to-day production however as users will be open to all known security risks April 2014 beyond.

Difficult to move on

Windows XP has been used extensively by Indian and global customers in the last 12 years plus of its existence. The only other operating system which is being used now so extensively would be Windows 7. However, XP still holds the roost in the Indian market especially in the SMB and SME segment in India.

Most of the channel fraternity members voiced out that the biggest concern for the companies who aspire to migrate to another operating system is the lack of budget for this enmass update. Many partners highlighted there will be a need to upgrade the hardware and this will increase the overall expenditure significantly. In most common scenario, the companies only replace to Windows 7 when they were placing new orders of computer systems.

Another pain areas for many companies is they are still baffled with regards to transition of the firm's legacy platforms especially software migration, on how to go about managing this transition. Especially for larger organization with multiple hundred machines, considering all factor and above all cost, many are yet to strategize their move. This pain area will affect everybody from the largest enterprises to the smallest firm.

There is a lot of thought process on which way to go ahead and there is going to be a lot of struggle in any organization till the time they complete the ordeal of XP to wherever transition.

Partners' Opinion
Partners have been an integral machinery for the success of Microsoft and any of their offering in this country. However, many feel it is the right mover, some say it was a natural course to be taken while many have voiced out it was about time.

Vivek Srivastav of Team Computers said, "This is not exactly the right move by Microsoft, since multiple customer are very happy with XP and few of their application vendors aren't compatible with new OS. It will cost them extra, application cost." He further added, "It is going to have an impact on the industry as it will cost them extra, for application and training their employees on any new platform they adopt."

Srivastav said, "However, surely this will create opportunities for the community. We have seen pretty good demand especially from banks. Apart from this, there option are multiple, selling licenses, services and training to end users."

On the other hand, Kshitij Kotak of Fortune Grecells said, "Every company needs to close down supporting product line after a few years, you don't expect spare parts for a 1904 old cars despite company being there till 2014. Then why should a software company not phase out products! Perfectly correct move. And they have not made XP non-functional. Stopping support will only mean users will not get patches, upgraded security and will expose the systems to predators on the web as well as newer drivers will not be available to deploy or support new hardware. MS is not making XP stop running, it will keep running without support." He further added, "Microsoft has scored huge publicity out of this phasing out that will see a quantum jump in sales of Win 8.1 & Office. Thanks to awareness created as a fallout of this phase out Microsoft will gain big time and for a long time to come pushing customers to cloud ' and that is what they want. It is a perfect move for the company."

Kotak said, "It is already making customers migrate to Windows 8.1 or alternative operating systems like Linux. Banking, insurance, government sector is worst affected as they are still to move out of legacy systems." He further added, "SMB using pirated software are unaffected, however shameful that is in this day and age. Businesses may migrate to cloud subscription to solutions such as Office 365 due to cash crunch, a perfect."

Arvind Singh of Maxnet Computers said, "Yes. I think so. It becomes very problematic supporting an outdated technology after some time as it costs money and manpower to Microsoft."

Jiten Mehta of Magnamious Systems said, "I do not think so there is any impact as majority of them would be on Win 7. Yes, this create opportunities for the channel fraternity. We have a story to talk to customer and get some revenue out of it along with services."

Opportunities for Partners
The new Office 365, for example, won't run on Windows XP or Vista; only 7 or 8. And an XP upgrade is unlikely to be just a software sale. For many SMBs, their PCs won't be able to run Windows 7 or 8, so that likely means a hardware sale as well.

Kotak said, "Opportunity meets the astute who jump at the opportunity, not sit around waiting for opportunity to fall on them like Newton's apple. Channels are getting only marginal benefits from software sale despite this being the 1st time in 12 years a OS arguably with largest installed base, and probably the most loved too, is being phased out. However channels can create opportunity and reap benefits by way of improved system sales, service revenues and audits. System sales can be significantly improved as old, antiquated hardware cannot run Windows 8." He further added, "Windows 8.1 provides unique opportunity for IT channels in terms of marketing similar experience across devices; be it Laptop, Tablet or Phone. What most channel partners let go of is service opportunity around Windows 8.1. And if they venture into building App, they can hit a goldmine as Microsoft platform is not as crowded as Android and not as obscenely expensive as Apple."

While, Singh said, "Channel Partners can tap on revenue generation by their support. As far as System Integrators are concerned, they will continue supporting their customers on Windows XP till gradually client moves on the latest Operating System." He further added, "I see major revenue coming from upgradations or else selling security solutions. People will be making money on fear factor of viruses which will start attacking from many loopholes and backdoor left unrepaired or patched."

Voicing similar opinion, Ravi Bhavnani of Taurus IT said, "Lot of business opportunity for the IT industry. Great opportunity for everyone as there is a need of Software, Hardware and maybe the Client Softwares will need to be tweaked too. However, companies will have to rework budgets as with the Software Upgrade cost the cost of hardware may also get involved as old systems may have to be upgraded." He further added, "50% of Customers still on old Windows XP and this gave a great opportunity for business. Microsoft always takes care that Partners get constant business in this scenario. All Windows XP users are your target for Sale of Software and Hardware. This used to be many years back when Intel processors used to change every 6-8 months.. x86 to 286 to 386 etc and then the next opportunity came in y2k and now Windows XP."

Other Vendor Support
Many vendors are trying to help out companies in this transitional phase by extending support. While some are jointly running programs with Microsoft to help partners help their customers move to a different platform.

Srivastav said, "There will be very few vendors, since Microsoft had communicated almost 1½-yr. back for this discontinuation." While, Kotak said, "Small vendors who build software and solutions: Do they have a choice if the customer demands! Or does the customer have a choice if the software they use cannot be run on Win 7 or 8 or 8.1? A lot of legacy applications still need Windows XP and are not upgraded or orphaned. Large vendors like Sony had stopped shipping XP drivers for hardware since 2007. So do many HP printers and scanners do not work on OS beyond XP."

How Microsoft handled it
Microsoft had made available new programs, offers, tools and partnerships to help encourage more users to abandon XP. Microsoft will be spending a significant amount of money in this fiscal to continue its Windows Accelerate Program, which is its pre-sales program for moving more of its customers to a "modern environment."

Microsoft has two programs to support partners in making this happen: Go2Modern and TouchWin. The former provides marketing, messaging and quoting tools and collateral, as well as rotating incentives in the coming months, while the later specifically incents partner sales of touch-enabled Windows 8 devices. Microsoft for long has been pitching a three-pronged opportunity around hardware, software and services, and has incentives designed to drive attach. For example, bundling a new tablet or touch-enabled notebook with Windows 8.1 and Office 365.

Talking about how the company handled transition, Mehta said, "Yes with lot of noise in the market. "Adding to this, Kotak said, "Frankly, no. A lot of partners cannot effectively use latest OS, have no way to convince the customers on why to upgrade." He further said, "Support has never been an issue with MS. But partners like System Integrators need to be trained to sell Win 8.1."

 

On the other hand, Srivastav said, "I feel that Microsoft did handle it well but message hasn't gone to all the customers from channel/Microsoft. They had put good promo scheme but for shorter time and only last quarter." He further added, "Microsoft hasn't given any tool, to make it smooth. Traditional tools and solutions that are available, are expensive like mirage."

Going Ahead
The end of Windows XP is certainly not a death knell for the PC. In fact, the opposite is true. With the loss of Windows XP, a huge user base in the country will be left without a current operating system and a significant number of them will consider upgrading their PC hardware. In turn, that should create a much-needed uptick for PCs.

Singh said, "Many of Enterprise customers are in process of migrations. I guess, except for Home segment end Users, there won't be any problem post phase out of XP. Maxnet Computers team is fully geared to tackle this transition. Infact we have started converting our embedded clients on Windows7 Embedded."

While, Srivastav said, "We think few of the customers will keep using, whose business is not so crucial and few will forcefully move." Adding to this, Kotak said, "They will buy the new OS. Or a firewall to prevent external Internet originated security issues."

In the long run, it represents an immense opportunity. Naturally, when users upgrade they will seek out machines with the best possible hardware at an attractive total cost of ownership. There is definitely scope for boost of overall sales and making some money. This is also the time when partners can equip themselves to gain monetary benefits from services they can provide to companies.