Ramblings of an old Doc

 

Well, I suppose we should be grateful. After all, MS is servicing THEIR Windows XP computers with security updates, etc. for your tax dollars…much like the benefits you don’t see in the pricing of prescription drugs your tax dollars helped finance.

We should be grateful the government even cares enough to keep their outmoded computers and XP updated with security patches, etc.

So, the Navy has joined the “yeah, we’re paying $9.1 million dollars this year to MS for upkeep of Windows XP” club. It covers support for XP, Office 2003 and Exchange 2003. “It only covers a temporary extension and there's an option for the Navy to extend the support coverage until 2017 with a total price of $30.8 million.” per infopackets.

The Navy isn’t crazy nor inept…it’s not their fault. They’re running a modernization program, but the problem revolves around approximately 100,000 work stations, many of which are on ships and tied together in sea-sea, sat-sea and land sea based integrated systems. I, for one, would not wish to experience that “Patch Tuesday”. Also, how the hell does one upgrade machines and update them while being operational? Well, in parallel, duh.

Clearly the money has to be spent to maintain computer security, but seriously…why wasn’t this foreseen and planned for the correct way. Don’t bother to say it…because it’s the government. If it were the CEO of a public company? Buh-bye.

Anyway…just so you know XP is alive and well out there!

Source:

https://www.infopackets.com/news/9618/navy-spends-91m-keep-running-windows-xp


Comments
on Jun 27, 2015

Both 9mil and 30mil sound like rather small figures compared to the cost of replacing it on 100 000 workstations. I'm sure they'll replace it when the cost of doing so is lower than maintaining it? 

on Jun 27, 2015

Well here goes. Examples of CEO "golden parachutes": "William McGuire, of UnitedHealth Group, who was "asked to leave" (or whatever other euphemism we apply to rich people who get fired) when "he became embroiled in a stock options backdating scandal." Nonetheless, he got a payout of $285 million. Home Depot stock prices were stagnant under Robert Nardelli, and shareholders and the board were not happy with how much he was making as CEO, but when he left, it was with more than $220 million. Pfizer lost $140 billion (with a in market value under Hank McKinnell, Jr., but he walked away with $188 million. Because again we see that America's culture of accountability applies only at the bottom, and that at the top, there is just about no screw-up too big to deny a member of the 0.1 percent their $100 million payout." Taken from Daily Kos which also states that since 2000 there have been 21 of these people that walked away with 4 billion for for their incompetence.

I agree that there is a lot of waste in government but it's not just in government.  

on Jun 27, 2015

Actually, a lot of public companies are running stuff this old as well.  I contract for a fortune 500 that still has loads of their major infrastructure running on Workstation/Server 2003.

on Jun 27, 2015

I'm jealous. Who wants to run Windows 8?

on Jun 27, 2015

davrovana

I'm jealous. Who wants to run Windows 8?

on Jun 27, 2015


Anyway…just so you know XP is alive and well out there!

I got curious and a quick search led me here:

http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0

I can't vouch for the accuracy or the timeliness, but I did see something similar while I was poking around on one of your links in a post of yours a month or so ago.  It tells me:

Win7 - 57.76%

XP - 14.6%

Win8.1 - 12.88%

Win8 - 3.57%

So it would seem that the XP zombie is still staggering about at almost, not quite, the same pace as Win8 and Win8.1 combined.  Trivia for the day.

on Jun 29, 2015

Chasbo

Well here goes. Examples of CEO "golden parachutes": "William McGuire, of UnitedHealth Group, who was "asked to leave" (or whatever other euphemism we apply to rich people who get fired) when "he became embroiled in a stock options backdating scandal." Nonetheless, he got a payout of $285 million. Home Depot stock prices were stagnant under Robert Nardelli, and shareholders and the board were not happy with how much he was making as CEO, but when he left, it was with more than $220 million. Pfizer lost $140 billion (with a in market value under Hank McKinnell, Jr., but he walked away with $188 million. Because again we see that America's culture of accountability applies only at the bottom, and that at the top, there is just about no screw-up too big to deny a member of the 0.1 percent their $100 million payout." Taken from Daily Kos which also states that since 2000 there have been 21 of these people that walked away with 4 billion for for their incompetence.

I agree that there is a lot of waste in government but it's not just in government.  

Its called greed, AND it seems that the psych profiles of 'successful CEO' CFOs etc, share a great deal with the profiles of Sociopaths - they don't have any sense of feeling for the sufferings of others - even when their decisions cause massive numbers of people to suffer -merely to squeeze a few more pennies out of a stock.   A potent combo!

on Jun 29, 2015

As though people are conditioned to worship the almighty dollar, I couldn't care less. The point here is that XP may have been a "Fisher Price" OS but it was stable and every branch of the armed forces depend on it. What's needed is a viable conversion process that will avoid using tax payers money to shore up something that's obsolete but still works. 

on Jun 29, 2015


The point here is that XP may have been a "Fisher Price" OS but it was stable

XP wasn't 'stable'.

7 is 'mostly stable'.

ME was 'inherently UNstable'.

2000 was 'supposedly stable'.

 

MS doesn't DO 'stable'...

on Jun 29, 2015

Oops!