Windows XP

I thought I should log in to my blog so I don’t forget the password at least!

At the moment I am engaged in a major Windows 7 desktop upgrade project, driven by the deadlines of XP end of support so not much time to blog.

One thing to say though is that from day-to-day observation, there is a *lot* of business still running on XP, at least in the retail and service sector which is where my observations are made. Come to think of it, I don’t recall seeing any retail or service systems running on Windows 7. Maybe they’re just harder to spot.

Or maybe these systems are running on embedded, and support for that doesn’t run out until 2016 according to http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/search/default.aspx?alpha=windows+xp. Somehow I doubt it. It all points to a general view of IT being a pesky inconvenience, best pushed to the bottom of the priorities. And who can blame IT consumers? As I’ve blogged before, the IT industry doesn’t do itself any favours by producing complicated, bug-ridden, expensive products.

Quality, simplicity and flexibility should be the goals of the IT industry in the decades ahead. Cloud based apps are the best prospect, provided you can avoid being locked in to one of the big vendors platforms.