The UK and Dutch governments have paid Microsoft multiple millions to extend support for Windows XP past the 8 April cutoff date.

The UK extension cost £5.5m but is only valid for a year, after which public-sector users will have to be moved to newer software.

The Crown Commercial Service (CCS), a new central purchasing agency within the Cabinet Office, paid the US software company to provide important security software updates for Windows XP, Office 2003 and Exchange 2003 for the entire UK public sector.

“We have made an agreement with the Crown Commercial Service to provide eligible UK public-sector organisations with the ability to download security updates to Windows XP, Office 2003 and Exchange 2003 for one year until 8 April 2015,” said a Microsoft spokesperson.

That could require the upgrade of thousands of computers. EHI Intelligence calculated in September 2013 that 85% of the 800,000 PCs in the NHS alone were still running on XP at the time. By contrast, 14% were on Windows 7 and 1% on Windows 8.

NHS managers interviewed for that study expressed hope that Microsoft would change its mind on ending XP support, or that there would be a national solution – which appears to have happened with the CCS intervention.

“The NHS is very grateful for this deal,” said Sarah Hurrell of the CCS, according to Computer Weekly.

The support extension will give the NHS and other government departments breathing room to migrate from Windows XP.

A significant number of machines in the public sector remain on Windows XP, according to the Cabinet Office, although plans are in place to ensure that the majority of these are moved to other operating systems over the next 12 months.

The Dutch interior ministry negotiated a separate multimillion-euro deal with Microsoft for about 40,000 PCs still running Windows XP across the nation’s government-owned computers.

By: DocMemory
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