Microsoft has already officially announced that all those who are using its Windows XP operating system should either upgrade to Windows 8 or Windows 7 OS by April 2014. The software giant has also issued a media statement that after April 2014, it will no longer support its retired OS with security updates; patches and other stuff and this will make XP operating system users vulnerable to hackers, system crashes and malware.
Recently, the company has come up with an announcement that after April 8, 2014, XP users will get the support of security updates for coming 3 years, on a condition that they pay $200/PC for the first year and later on add $50 to the specified price for later years. That is, after 2015 you need to pay $250 and for subsequent years, you need to add $50 to the present years price i.e. $300+50 for 2016, $350+$50 for 2017 and ……..
Microsoft will offer security patches and updates from a program called “Custom Support” which will be an after retirement contract and will be in lines to “Windows Updates”.
It is rumored that “Customer Support” will only be offered to big companies which have not migrated to Win7/win8 (includes Vista version as well) for some reason. But some sources reveal that this support will be extended to individuals as well, who are willing to own an XP after its retirement date and want to get support from the software giant.
Microsoft Custom Support will include patches for vulnerabilities rated critical; bugs ranked as important, which is the next step to Microsoft’s 4-level threat scoring system. Legacy products or out of support service packs will also be covered by Microsoft’s Custom Support, where users will get security hot fixes for vulnerabilities labeled as Critical by Microsoft Security Response Center. However, some security updates will be notified and will only be available for extra fee.
Custom Support related services will be available via a secure process and will be available till April 2016. After 2016 there are chances of extending the support to more 5 years, on reviewing the response to its initial support service.
As per the latest estimates made by Microsoft engineers, Windows XP will be present on atleast 43% of PCs which run on Windows OS after April 2014. So, the company is interested in minting some money from these sources, if at all they still want to rely on the operating system for some reason.
Microsoft has its reason to come up with a custom support for its retired XP users as certain massive security problems like denial-of-service could bring the whole internet down to its knees, if prompt action is not taken on time. For this reason, with a vision to eliminate all such issues, Microsoft is going to support XP users with its utility kind of custom support service.
In 2012-2013, all XP users were given an option to upgrade to Windows 8 pro version just for $40. But it is now revealed that only 2% of XP users utilized this option and still a large portion of them are standing still avoiding the big leap for some reason.
It is a fact that XP, the 13 year old OS (launched in 2001) is being used as a pirated version in many countries hailing from regions such as Middle East, Africa, Asia and Australia. Microsoft tried its best to discourage users from using the pirated version since 2007, but nothing much has turned into its favor. Moreover, this practice has incurred heavy losses to Microsoft in the said period and in order to come out of it, the company announced to shut down Windows XP in 2011. It made an official announcement about its Windows XP retirement since then, through proper channels and has been regularly updating the same to XP users occasionally through different media sources.
Will it succeed in this step- As per our www.storageservers.wordpress.com analysis this step might not prove worthy to Microsoft from business point of view. It will only work for a handful of companies who like to retain XP on their systems for some reason (reasons best known to them) and may not be embraced by a major section of XP users due to its high cost. When a Windows 7/8 version is available for less than $300, then who will atleast think to maintain XP by shelling out $200 or more?
Now, coming to all those who are having a mind set of using XP after its retirement date, here is a bit of analysis from Microsoft experts- It is seen on many LinkedIn discussion pages that some people are interested in using XP after the said date, with a thinking that if they isolate the PC from internet, they can never have issues and can continue with XP platform for years to come. This is just a myth as in reality, every operating system needs regular updates related to software and hardware and if you avoid such updates, then there is a high probability that your system will crash within few weeks of its OS upload. If you connect the PC to internet, then Microsoft update servers will track your version of XP and may also initiate the move to shut it down remotely.
Think logically, when Microsoft can offer “Windows genuine pop-up” remotely through an update, then will it not have the potential to shut the whole system with a single security update?
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