Why Windows XP is Bad for Business and Your Bottom Line

Windows XP officially hit the big one on April 8, 2014. For all of you non-Sanford and Son fans out there, the “big one” means the support for this operating system came to its ultimate demise.
Despite support running out for XP, there are still plenty of users out there who haven’t yet migrated off of it.
Part of the issue is that a lot of organizations still count on Windows XP to run some of their most critical business applications. These applications haven’t been updated or redeveloped to run on alternative operating systems such as Windows 7 or Windows 8.
The other hold up is on the migration side. According to Computer Weekly, it can take anywhere from 18 to 32 months for an enterprise-level deployment to take place. For a lot of firms, this is a pretty aggressive timeframe that involves a lot of precise IT coordination in very little time. Applications need to be configured for a new OS, and the transition needs to be seamless without disrupting business productivity.
According to an interview InformationWeek conducted, Techaisle CEO Anurag Agrawal pointed out, “If businesses have not yet migrated [from] Windows XP, it is not because they do not want to but because they have many internal barriers.”
Despite these barriers, there are very real consequences that come with staying on an unsupported OS. Businesses staying on XP are running the same risk Red Sox fans ran when they wore their Boston gear in Yankees stadium during the 2004 ALCS: You can only hide for so long before the situation turns ugly. These businesses are playing with fire, especially from the compliance, security, and uptime standpoints.
Ask yourself if staying on Windows XP is worth risking the uptime, safety, and viability of your critical data. How much additional cost would your organization incur if your applications go down indefinitely thanks to a security breach?
Downtime can paralyze businesses of all sizes. According to Ponemon Institute, the average cost of unplanned downtime is $7,900, up 41% since 2010.
And if you think it’s cheaper to maintain PCs that run on XP versus Windows 7, IDC recently revealed that it’s nearly seven times more expensive to maintain an XP-led machine. This doesn’t even take into account what the costs would be if these PCs were to go down.
Still unsure if the time is right to migrate off of Windows XP? Contact PBM today to discuss your options.