Counting down to the Windows XP retirement party

Microsoft Corp. will officially end support for the Windows XP operating system on April 8th, 2014, and the vendor has released the infographic below with its top eight reasons for upgrading to Windows 8.

The vendor is launching a major push between now and then to encourage customers still hanging onto XP to upgrade, and to help partners make that happen. It was a key topic at Microsoft’s recent Worldwide Partner Conference in Houston, where the vendor told partners the existing XP install base is a potential “gold mine” for the channel.

According to Microsoft, about 48 per cent of small and medium-sized businesses globally are still on XP. In Canada, the figure is a little lower, at about 30 per cent of the overall install base. The push to upgrade isn’t just financial – security updates and patches will no longer be coming from Microsoft after end of support, leaving holdouts more vulnerable to security exploits.

While the push is to go to Windows 8, channel partners say many clients are deciding to exercise their downgrade rights and go with Windows 7, a more familiar OS that should be supported for many years to come.

Microsoft_RetirementParty

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Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

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Jeff Jedras
Jeff Jedras
A veteran technology and business journalist, Jeff Jedras began his career in technology journalism in the late 1990s, covering the booming (and later busting) Ottawa technology sector for Silicon Valley North and the Ottawa Business Journal, as well as everything from municipal politics to real estate. He later covered the technology scene in Vancouver before joining IT World Canada in Toronto in 2005, covering enterprise IT for ComputerWorld Canada. He would go on to cover the channel as an assistant editor with CDN. His writing has appeared in the Vancouver Sun, the Ottawa Citizen and a wide range of industry trade publications.

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