Channel: We're not to blame for XP councils chaos

Channel players claim to have done all they can to encourage public sector migration

Channel firms have denied they shoulder any blame for the high number of devices that will be running Windows XP in local councils after support ends in April, claiming that convincing the public sector to upgrade has been like banging their heads against a brick wall.

Earlier this week, an exclusive CRN investigation revealed that most local councils will be running XP in some form after Microsoft ends support next month. In total, 121,417 devices – 20 per cent of the total declared in Freedom of Information (FoI) requests – will be running on XP in the local councils after the support cut-off date.

Six local authorities will run every device on XP until as late as next summer, prompting security experts to slam the councils for leaving themselves open to breaches.

Microsoft has been driving its XP migration campaign for the past year, but channel players claim the push has fallen on deaf ears in the public sector despite resellers' best efforts to encourage a PC refresh.

Kelvin Kirby (pictured), UK president of the International Association of Microsoft Channel Partners (IAMCP) and boss of reseller Technology Associates, said that despite numerous channel warnings, some public sector customers simply did not take XP migration seriously and are now set to pay the price.

"The channel has been very proactive with customers about migration, but it has been a bit like banging your head against a brick wall," he told CRN.

"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. We've been saying [migration is key] for two years now and that customers need to think about an upgrade strategy but it seems like it has fallen on deaf ears. There is an assumption that Microsoft won't let XP die.

"The partner community has done its bit and correctly advised that customers need to update, it is just that a lot of these councils have buried their heads in the sand and hoped it will go away.

"Now the penny is dropping that they need to get cracking."

One reseller told CRN that Microsoft's XP migration campaign was based too much on scare tactics, which meant public sector IT chiefs dismissed its efforts as a way of flogging more Windows 7 and Windows 8 licences, prompting them to dig their heels in for longer and stick it out on XP.

McAfee's UK public sector strategy and relations boss Graeme Stewart said that taking a measured view of the XP security risk is the key to long-term customer relationships.

"The opportunity for channel partners is to go in and take a balanced view of the risk," he said. "This is the key bit: it is the wrong approach to shout at them to get off XP... they need to take a balanced view and not jump up and down shouting about [the risks]."

IAMCP's Kirby agreed that the public sector was stubborn, but insisted Microsoft's warnings about security should be stressed.

"Nobody can give any guarantees about running an old OS and all of the warnings there are valid," he said. "It is not scaremongering by any means. I think the fact [councils] have left it too late shouldn't be a reason for customers to accuse Microsoft of scaremongering – that is the wrong way to approach it. It's down to a lack of planning on [councils'] part."

Microsoft declined to comment but when speaking to CRN earlier this month, the vendor's UK channel boss Linda Rendleman said from what she has seen among partners, there are more migration opportunities out there than there are partners to fulfil them.

Kirby agreed and warned that while the channel could cash in on late migrations, customers could suffer.

"The issue is that for those customers who are panicking, there are not enough partners to do all the work. We are seeing that there will be a bottleneck in the delivery of those services – it is something we could have predicted but they have buried their heads in the sand."

TechMarketView research director Angela Eager was more sympathetic to local councils' plight, but agreed that they could have done more to upgrade faster.

"The figures are not surprising – the public sector is not known for its fast movement," she said.

"They have to cover a lot of costs, especially when they are on austerity programmes. It is not a simple and cheap matter to do those upgrades; it takes a lot of time to prepare. But those figures should not be as high as they are."