[ad_1]
Microsoft has complied with the reality that companies will not run Windows 7 in January 2020, and announced that they will sell extended support for three years after that date.
Called "Windows 7 Extended Security Updates" (ESU), the post-drop agreement will add support until January 2023, according to Microsoft. The news was part of a larger announcement made Thursday by Jared Spataro, the executive who leads marketing for Office and Windows. "Although many of you are already well on the rollout of Windows 10, we understand that everyone is at a different stage of the upgrade process," said Spataro.
The general status of migrations from Windows 7 to Windows 10 by commercial customers was not mentioned. Windows 7 ESU was almost certainly an answer to customers who were telling Microsoft that they would not respect the deadline of January 14, 2020, or at least a realization by the company that despite all its aggressive efforts to push back the old operating system, companies would not finish their updates on time.
Clues abound that Windows 7 will be hard to remove. In July, Microsoft said that about 184 million commercial PCs still operated under Windows 7 worldwide (although the number did not include systems in China, an omission that Microsoft did not not explained). But the number of Microsoft – a count of PC telemetry – was only a fraction of the last estimate calculated by World of the computer using data from the Net Applications analytics provider. World of the computerthe August issue: 378 million Windows 7 professional PCs.
Other forecasts put the share of Windows 7 users at 34% in January 2020, which means that more than a third of all Windows PCs will depend on the operating system then not supported.
Windows 7 ESU, said Spataro, will only be available for PCs running Windows 7 Professional or Windows 7 Enterprise, and only if these operating systems were obtained via a volume licensing agreement. Rebates will be offered to customers who also have Software Assurance plans for Windows or subscribers to Windows 10 Enterprise or Windows 10 Education, such as the Microsoft 365 Subscription.
Additional support will be distributed in increments of one year up to three years and support will be sold on a per device basis, rather than per user approach that Microsoft has pressured for Windows 10 licenses The prices will "increase every year," confirmed Spataro. However, Microsoft has not disclosed the costs of Windows 7 ESU nor the exact nature of what would be provided.
Windows 7 ESU looks like what Microsoft once labeled "Premium Assurance "when it was unveiled at the end of 2016 for Windows Server, then removed when Redmond, Wash. A proposed" extended security updates "in July.
To further complicate matters, Microsoft has developed a different program, called "paid extra service," for Windows 10. Evidence of this contract, a one-year fee-based support plan for upgrades to the features of Windows 10, have been removed. the Microsoft page where it was presented in February. The omission or disappearance of the fee-based complementary maintenance was probably due to the lengthening of Microsoft's support for upgrading features each fall from 18 to 30 months.
Based on Spataro's announcement and what Microsoft is offering to its customers via other plans, including the extended Windows Server security updates, Windows 7 will likely distribute security patches for Windows. vulnerabilities classified as "Critical" or "Important". staged filing system. The price can be high: ESU for Windows Server 2008 runs 75% of the total cost of the license annually when updates are deployed on local servers.
In addition to bug fixes, Windows 7 ESU also allows covered PCs to continue to run Office 365 ProPlus, locally installed applications (Outlook, Word, Excel, etc.) that form the basis of the software as an Office 365 service. Microsoft previously required that Windows 7 support running Office 365 ProPlus expire at the end of support in January 2020. "This means that customers who buy Windows 7 ESU will still be able to run Office 365 ProPlus." Spataro said.
More information on Windows 7 ESU might be available later this month. In his announcement, Spataro suggested that Microsoft will discuss in detail the many changes made to the support policy during Ignite conference, to be held from September 24 to 28.
Companies have also been invited to contact their Microsoft account team or their Microsoft solution partner for more information on Windows 7 ESU.
Source link
