Look out, world! HP's found a use for Autonomy - rescuing Win XP bods

HP is offering an Autonomy-powered escape route for wannabe migrants from the dead-end of Windows XP.

Microsoft will no longer support for XP, and withhold security updates for the ageing operating system, from next April. Business users will need to upgrade their PCs to run a more modern version of Windows; companies face having to migrate hundreds if not thousands of staff.

That will involve migrating data from the old expired XP boxes to whatever newer Windows system might be chosen. HP reckons you should use its Autonomy Connected Backup 8.8 product and so avoid data-migration horror shows - think gigabytes of lost information and time-consuming, costly procedures involving multiple products and procedures.

It backs up files from the dead-end XP machine either to the cloud or your own data centre. From there the users can get "near-instant" access to their data when they log in to their new PC, or via a Google Android, Apple iOS or Microsoft Windows handset.

Hewlett-Packard claims Connected Backup has the features needed by businesses wanting to move away from XP: from centralised policy management and reporting to what's dubbed "litigation-ready mobile user data protection". Litigation-ready, indeed.

If you really don't want to use your own on-premises systems, your biz bytes can be sent to HP data centres located in all major geographies, we're told, if you trust them - or to a combination of HP's cloud and in-house arrays.

The software was made by Autonomy, the British company bought by HP for $10bn in 2011 - a purchase, er, written down by $8.8bn a year later. Get more info on the backup gear here. ®