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Windows Server 2003 custom support could cost MILLIONS

Got a few million tucked under the mattress for Microsoft?

Possible hack attack

Migrations are disruptive and expensive projects for businesses and those responsible for budgets are quite happy to delay them where possible, but the implications of doing so can be serious.

Claunch said IT managers were proposing the move off WS2003 for several years but kept “getting shot down” by top management.

“I think it’s partly from a lack of understanding of how serious the issue is ... they are not seeing it as an absolute barrier to being able to keep the system running, that is the disconnect here," he said.

“Outside of the IT department, people think of it as a maintenance or efficiency initiative, like painting the outside of the house - you have to do it but if you’ve got to choose between that and something that is maybe more important, you are going to prioritise the things that add business value or provide a good return," said Claunch.

Clanch: No certainty that a hack

attack will happen post 14 July 2015,

but the “gamble” rises the longer the WS2003

machines are left unsupported.

This was not simply companies whose IT tends to be under-funded, low skilled or conservative. “It's every kind of company, including leading edge IT organisations, businesses from the smallest to the largest, it’s evenly spread around the planet and industry segments”.

Clanch said there is no certainty that a hack attack will happen post 14 July, but the “gamble” rises the longer the WS2003 machines are left unsupported.

"The risk for businesses, that they are not realising, is it's like a flood wiping out your DC and having nothing set up as a backup. What would you do if a flood erased the DC? Well, by the time you found a new one and tried to rebuild everything you are out of business," Claunch told us.

"There's a lot of urgency from IT groups concerned that they are going to have unsupported system," he said.

As we pointed out last month, there's not a huge volume of refresh activity taking place via the channel, but things are set to intensify next year, helping to breath new life into what’s been, until recently, a shrinking server sales space. ®

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