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Yesterday Microsoft ended support for Windows XP. While many users and even businesses continue to cling to the venerable OS there will be no further security updates and even with active anti-virus and malware protection, many users will be left unsecure reports the LA Times and various other news outlets.
There are some exceptions for the right customers.
The UK and Dutch governments have paid Microsoft multiple millions to extend support for Windows XP past the 8 April cutoff date.
The UK extension cost £5.5m but is only valid for a year, after which public-sector users will have to be moved to newer software.
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Microsoft Ends Support for Windows XP
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If the thunder don't get you, then the lightning will.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Lagg on Wednesday April 09 2014, @12:43PM
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 09 2014, @01:03PM
Bribary on the part of whom? Microsoft or the government?
Who is bribing whom? Who is the bad guy here?
(Score: 1) by crutchy on Wednesday April 09 2014, @01:07PM
i think the op is confusing "bribery" with "extortion"
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Wednesday April 09 2014, @01:26PM
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Wednesday April 09 2014, @01:55PM
It's not "bribery" (or "extortion") at all, in any way shape or form. The company doesn't want to support this product any more. They shouldn't have to. Does Ford still support Edsels or Model Ts? The UK government is too stupid to migrate to something newer, so they're paying what it costs for MS to continue to support them. Since the UK government willingly locked themselves in like this, they have to pay whatever MS asks. I think MS should ask more, perhaps an amount equivalent to 25% of the UK GDP. Obviously, the UK government is addicted to XP like a heroin addict, and they deserve to pay for their stupidity AFAIC. They've had every opportunity to do things differently.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Lagg on Wednesday April 09 2014, @02:35PM
Uh huh. If they didn't want to support it anymore they could have said no. But they're happy to continue milking people's money because of a shortsighted government. And if you want to bring the term extortion into it, it can easily be considered that. You basically even said that with the addict analogy. As I said in another comment Microsoft can easily keep milking them indefinitely and charging more and more. I bet that's what they'll do too if government software history is anything to go by. Eventually the cost will exceed what it would have to move to a better system (linux or otherwise) by several magnitudes. Let me give a few representative lines here:
"That's a nice XP setup you got there. Would be a shame if we couldn't patch it anymore" - Microsoft
"This product has reached end of life. Please upgrade or find something else." - Non-jackass company
Do you see the difference here? The second line is what the response would be if the company didn't want to support it anymore. But that isn't Microsoft. Maybe I should have just called it extortion in the first place. Seems inflammatory but it does fit much better and is pretty much what it is and posts like yours are further reinforcing that in my mind.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Wednesday April 09 2014, @03:36PM
If they didn't want to support it anymore they could have said no.
They don't, but apparently for enough money, they'll make an exception. There's a lot of things I'd rather not do, but if someone offered me $1M to do them, I might change my mind, at least temporarily.
But they're happy to continue milking people's money
What's wrong with this? No one's forcing these governments to pay for this service. I don't care much for doing programming in a Windows environment, but if someone wants me to, I'll do it for enough cash. Is that "milking people's money"? I don't think so.
And if you want to bring the term extortion into it, it can easily be considered that.
No, it's not. That's completely idiotic. No one is forcing these governments to pay this, or to use XP. They're doing it of their own choice. They're free to migrate to something else, they're just too stupid and lazy to do so.
As I said in another comment Microsoft can easily keep milking them indefinitely and charging more and more.
Yes, and they have every right to do so. Don't like it? Stop using XP. It's that simple. No one's forcing them to use XP. They're paying for their own stupidity, and there's nothing wrong with separating fools from their money. This is a good case study in why you should avoid vendor lock-in at all costs.
Eventually the cost will exceed what it would have to move to a better system (linux or otherwise) by several magnitudes.
Yes, of course. If they're too stupid to realize this or to avoid it, they deserve to pay up.
"That's a nice XP setup you got there. Would be a shame if we couldn't patch it anymore" - Microsoft
No one's forcing them to use XP. It's almost 15 years old. Do you expect Ford to continue supporting Model Ts?
"This product has reached end of life. Please upgrade or find something else." - Non-jackass company
So MS would be non-jackass by simply refusing to support it at all? That makes no sense. They've offered a service for an ancient product that is EOL. If the customer doesn't like the terms or pricing, they're free to refuse, and upgrade or find something else. Obviously these governments are too dumb to do that.
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Wednesday April 09 2014, @04:49PM
When considering your argument, please take care to remember that this money being used is not the government's but the people who pay the taxes. This is what I'm keeping in mind when writing my own responses. I would imagine that the people whose money is going into this would have an objection to it if they knew where it was going and understood the situation. You're also ignoring the fact that I'm saying that they shouldn't be supporting old stuff past its end of life. A responsible company doesn't just EOL something and then give some people special treatment to capitalize on their lockin. Yet you persist with the Ford nonsense (and the fact that it relates to cars does not give you meme points). So you're not really in any position to be calling my terminology idiotic.
I do agree that they deserve to be milked if they're going to make such shortsighted decisions in the first place. But this isn't just "the government's" money being extorted. It's the money of people paying into it. And given Microsoft and friends' expertise in taxes (won't even get into that can of worms) I'm sure they know this. You have to understand that this doesn't just come down to a matter of profits, it's Microsoft willingly taking advantage of their stranglehold to milk the government and by extension the people paying into them. With the implicit threat that they'll cease support and leave them naked in the rain if they stop paying in. What else is that but extortion?
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Wednesday April 09 2014, @05:03PM
The taxpayers should be doing a better job managing their government, especially when their government is happily sending all their money to some convicted monopolist in a foreign country. In some countries, mismanaged governments result in people demonstrating in the streets and calling for new elections.
With the implicit threat that they'll cease support and leave them naked in the rain if they stop paying in. What else is that but extortion?
So it's better to just leave them naked in the rain, to avoid being called an "extortionist"? That's some odd logic you have there.
This whole "extortion" thing is ridiculous. If your car goes out of warranty, but you're allowed to buy an "extended warranty" afterwards, is that extortion? Or is it only extortion if you think the price is too high? No one is obligated to fix your car after the warranty period has expired (some safety defects excluded, but even here there's a time limit; the government isn't going to help you with your 60s car and its numerous safety defects, or probably even a 90s car). It's not "extortion" if some company (even the original mfgr) offers an extended warranty for your older used car.
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Wednesday April 09 2014, @05:41PM
Yes they definitely should be doing a better job. Which goes back to my original post in that it's disappointing that through all the arrogance and "mine is not as bad as yours" mentality this has happened. It makes them look like tools as I said earlier. But I can't simply put all the blame on them for this because Microsoft knows pretty damn well what they're doing because it was part of their own strategy. And you're trying way too hard to shove car analogies into this thread. It makes your argument nonsensical and makes it seem as if you misunderstood mine. Do you really think this is benevolence on Microsoft's part? If you do I'm going to have to say that you're mighty naive. This isn't like an extended warranty at all and if you insist it is you need to look at some of the history of Microsoft. No, it's extortion and the more of these posts I see the more that is becoming clear to me. The UK and Dutch government has plenty of well deserved blame placed on them but it's rather unreasonable to say that it's all because of their stupidity.
Now can you stop knocking down strawmen and look at the spirit of my original post please? You'll note that it was more about the respective governments being tools and how it doesn't bode well for anyone and you pretty much devolved it into some other thread of discussion that I was probably stupid to take the bait of. I will say one thing though. I wish this was like an extended warranty. Because then people would rarely buy them and then once they realize how strict the criteria is to actually use that warranty would stop buying into it and the company giving it altogether, and that would be awesome.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 3, Insightful) by archshade on Wednesday April 09 2014, @03:05PM
I don't get why so many people have a downer on MS for this. What they are doing is opportunistic and money grabbing. Which sound bad but Microsoft have a duty to make money. It is not even like this is a shock. MS have not suddenly turned around and said we are not supporting this any more.
If MS had suddenly announced that they would end support, or had officially said they were ending support but made noises about continuing support at a much lower cost (I have not heard of MS doing anything like this). Then if people had believed them and MS had landed this huge fee on them then MS would have done something wrong. As it is MS have repeatedly said this is going to happen, and released an alternative product. This is also an opportunity for people to move away from MS. Most people would be OK on a Linux desktop (the UK govement has said they want to move over to ODF and rendering of OOXML documents seems to be the biggest problem wrt migrating away from Windows). For anybody who needs some legacy stuff that will only run on XP, put it in a VM using there XP licences.
I have no love for MS, and will jump on any legitimate reason to criticize them, but here all the blame has to be laid firmly at the feet of the incompetent civil servants. They have probably justified this by saying that the £5.5M is [a lot] less than the [one off] upgrade cost*. They will still have to pay the upgrade cost though, just delayed by a year.
*I understand that upgrading to Win 7 will be an expensive affair, Software needs to be confirmed to work, security audits performed, and for some reason the people we trust to do day to day running of the country will need training. Still on paper the one time cost will be lower than the alternatives. I am a British citizen living in the Netherlands, and this really annoys me.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Wednesday April 09 2014, @03:39PM
I have no love for MS, and will jump on any legitimate reason to criticize them, but here all the blame has to be laid firmly at the feet of the incompetent civil servants.
Exactly. I really despise MS, but even here I have to cheer them on and only criticize them for not charging even more. These governments are utterly idiotic not only for being so entangled with XP, but not finding a better solution years ago, and I have zero sympathy for them now.
And WTF is all this crap about "training" anyway? I've never received any training at all for using Windows or Office at any job, either when starting the job or when the company moved to a new software version. Everyone is just assumed to know how to use it, or to figure it out on their own.