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Apple's chance to grow as half a billion Windows 7 PCs hit EOL:
The company's enterprise credentials continue to extend. At a recent Apple-focused enterprise IT event, we encountered opinion and statistics to reinforce this point.
The point being that support for Apple technologies has become a human resources issue, and that people entering the workshop will choose to use that company's technologies if they can.
This is prompting some of the world's most influential enterprise firms to offer that choice to their employees.
Beyond HR considerations, IBM CIO Fletcher Previn points out multiple advantages Cupertino's computers offer, not least in terms of net promoter score, user experience and the actual costs of management, upgrade and support.
[...] The positive upswell in support for Apple's systems comes as around 417,000,000 Windows 7 devices (a big chunk of all Windows PCs currently in use worldwide) are about to experience Microsoft terminating support on January 14, 2020.
It's a relatively safe assumption to think that at least some tens of thousands of these PCs could now be replaced by an iPad, or even a Mac.
Why wouldn't some of these migrate to Apple's platforms, when Microsoft's fee-based extended support package costs up to $200 per device?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 12 2020, @02:10AM (4 children)
What, will the botnets install Linux?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 12 2020, @05:14AM (3 children)
Given that the Average Joe (and Jane) out there consider a computer as another commodity like a toaster or microwave oven, the chances of THEM waking up and moving to Linux are near zero. They most likely scenario is that they might proceed down one or more of these paths:
* do nothing and run Win7 until something goes badly wrong - hardware dies or software fails (or is hacked)
* allow some upgrade to Win10
* toss the old machine, get a new one from the Big Box down the road
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 12 2020, @05:26AM
And...
Find out Windows 10 doesn't work with their printer/scanner/motherboard/ or something else. And that it took 2 days to install and now takes 30 minutes to finish booting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 12 2020, @05:40AM
I have a 2011 system with Win7. It will be tossed eventually, but as long as it still works, I don't care.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday January 14 2020, @03:31AM
My present machine, WIN7, is quite sufficient.
But I know the internet coding standards will change.
Just like they have before.
And refuse to talk to my older browser.
So, I plan to just get a big WalMart ONN Android tablet, and load it with a 128 GB TF card, the latest browser of the day and lots of download / file transfer capabilities, and use it look at the net, much like I would use tongs to pick up and examine things, knowing some of the things I pick up may be very sticky or toxic.
That way I delegate the risk to something much easier to clean.
I can't stop Internet businesses from mixing code and data, but I can first download the whole shebang and examine it to see what's in it before I run it.
Even if I don't catch the bomb, my main machines are air-gapped, and all the malware can do is give itself away by waking up Wireshark as it bleats out trying to connect to something not in my domain.
I can run my stuff far more secure than, say, a corporate system. For me, a systems breach could wipe out a weekend of personal time that I would really rather use for something else, or create a paperwork mess that takes me years to sort out, but on a corporate system, it's just a bullet point on an interoffice memo. Nobody loses their vacation. Nobody loses their golden parachute, even if people die. Given the rewards for diligence, vs the rewards for foolhardiness, can't really why things are as fscked up as they are.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]