SWOT Analysis - business changing from Win7 to Win8 or 10.

Forums › Microsoft Windows › SWOT Analysis - business changing from Win7 to Win8 or 10.

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225 posts

Master Geek

# 1405027 13-Oct-2015 14:03

1101:
Some printer drivers, even for Win8, are ONLY available via winupdate.
Sometimes there is no driver download,via winupdate only (so slow) and they will even state all this that printers support/driver webpage.

Most drivers that come from Windows Update are are also available via https://catalog.update.microsoft.com/v7/site/home.aspx which lets you download them for deployment or even import them into WSUS if required.

jhsol

92 posts

Master Geek

# 1405082 13-Oct-2015 15:30

2 people support this post

nunz: It's no secret, I'm not a fan boy when it comes to Windows 8 / 8.1 or 10. However I do try to maintain some level of dispassion when it comes to making choices for my clients. with that in mind I thought it might be worth while doing a joint SWOT / Risk analysis for businesses wanting to move up from windows 7 to new OS on their desktop machines / laptops.

Here are the parameters - It's a risk / benefit analysis. It's not what we do or don't like, it's what adds benefit or risk to a business.

I'm going to take the negative side - sticking with Win7 as I honestly cannot see the benefit in upgrading at present. I present my anterior aspect to the geekzone community, ready to be spanked, schooled and enlightened by those who think there is a benefit. Who knows - hopefully I'll learn something.

Risks:

1 - Security best practice says reduce / eliminate that which is not required. Metro screen and apps - hard to remove, most of them dont add benefit to a business and it adds a nother layer of securty requirements (e.g. a second IE engine, apps framework etc)

2 - The jump from windows 2000 to WinXP added a lot of network traffic into the lan. The jump from XP to Win* / 10 adds even more. most of it is of no benefit but adds cost and slows down networks.

3 - More network functionality exposed with little to no business benefit. Reduces security.

4 - Time loss / wastage: Adding links to social media does little to benefit business and a lot to adding to time wastage by employees.

5 - Metro Screen and lack of start screen / new start screen slows down multi tasking.

6 - Now more clicks to do the same tasks. The ribbon in Office has also added a gazillion clicks to our everyday lives.

7 - Subscription model / advertising. Intrusive, adds risk of information breach, time wasting, network hogging, adds security risks.

8 - Throwing away tested software nad introducing whole new code base adds in more risk in the short term - long term it is a better strategy - but not now.

9 - Tie in / buy in. options are becoming more limited with less vendor options. XP heralded the explosion of open source, innovation and diversity. windows Store, (and yes iTunes store, google store etc) reducing that innovation nad choice.

10 - Central security and control of updates, log ins, security - all your eggs in one basket. Breached once - big damage. Security belongs in house - need to know for passwords, tokens etc.

Ok, this is the last post by me. Its quite clear that Nunz has a clear bias towards not updating to Win 8.1 or 10 and thats perfectly fine. The original query was a SWOT / Risk analysis for businesses. My advice is purely from a business perspective that assumed you had an Active Directory (or similar) method for central management.

Windows is as secure (or not as secure) as you wish it to be. It can be as personalised or non personalised as you want it to be. It is extremely customisable but you need someone who knows what they are doing. Yes it is time consuming to fit all the changes in but the great thing about Group Policy is it applies to all domain joined users and computers, so set it once and you dont have to worry about it again. If you dont have AD then I class you as a home computer. Just because you are a single user business, you are essentially using a home computer to do your business on.

If you are a small to medium sized business thinking about upgrading to windows 10 you need to do a proper risk assessment. Any decent MS IT professional will know how to lock down your Windows environment to suit your needs. The fears and security risks mentioned through out this thread can all be dealt with so if you want to upgrade to Windows 10 then get a proper MS professional in and do it.

My recommended advice is if you are not on Software Assurance, upgrade before the free offer expires (July 29th 2016). There are dozens of features in Windows 10 that aren't in 7 that could make your environment more secure, more robust, more adaptable and more efficient. You just wont know what they are until you do a proper risk assessment on it. If you have an AD structure in place you are probably already paying someone for IT Support. Get them to do a risk/benefit on your environment and then work out whether Windows 10 is better for you or not.

From my experience (12 years in the IT field, 9 years as a Systems Admin) is that alot of the risks are not real risks to the business (ie caring about users clicking on links to social media in Office when its blocked at the firewall level). Do a risk assessment on your business and work out what is best for you. There is no one size fits all here. It saddens me that Nunz is telling people not to update to Win 10 for 2 years but thats something I dont have control over. His clients, his advice. But if you want some real risk analysis done then get a proper person in to do it.

Hammerer

2051 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

# 1405139 13-Oct-2015 17:49

One person supports this post

nunz: ... I cannot see a business case out of the answers given that a business owner would accept in a risk / reward analysis...

I cannot see a level of detail to describe what the actual business does so a business case could be developed in this forum. The grist of a business case depends on information about a business that you haven't provided. This particularly applies to the O of SWOT, opportunities. Because you chose to take the negative position you have actually denied anyone else some insight into how the businesses might leverage new technology for greater benefit. Ultimately that denies those businesses the possibility of a reasonable option because of your oft stated and vehement bias.

On the other hand, even if you could provide sufficient information, I doubt that anyone would want to do the analysis work for nothing. The benefits are often buried in the detail, as are the many costs that you are so keen on emphasising for anything but the older versions of Windows that you are campaigning to retain.

The main alternative is to use a methodology that aggregates data from many organisations to produce a generalised model about costs and benefits. This is what Gartner and others sell and I doubt you'd get anything like it for free unless it was commissioned by Microsoft which would, based on your views here, be summarily ignored.

cr250bromo

222 posts

Master Geek

# 1405697 14-Oct-2015 14:33

I could be biased working at a University where we are serving primarily younger end users - we will be moving to Windows 10 for 2016 all going well. Highly locked down corporate envirionments are not something these users have grown up with or even know. We need to adapt to what this generation expect as they will be in the workforce sooner or later.

Does it really matter if people do a bit of social networking or personal emails during work time as long as they get the job done? Many organisations expect their staff to be available via mobile and maybe even reply to important emails outside work hours, the work/personal lines have been blurred. So I think there is a bit of give/take on both sides. Staff can easily waste far more time chatting in the staff room while getting coffee, or long drawn out meetings.

A lot of locked down environments are more for show than anything specific and users will often circumvent restrictions - not for malicious reasons but simply to do their job. EG an external vendor I deal with cannot recieve attachments to as their mail server doesn't permit it. So their helpdesk created a gmail account to recieve these emails. Another example is an NZ insurance company (that I won't name) that has a very restrictive internet filter. So the staff use their work mobile connections to access things that are blocked, costing the company more on their mobile bill.

/ben

nunz

1384 posts

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# 1405942 14-Oct-2015 20:38

jhsol: .... It saddens me that Nunz is telling people not to update to Win 10 for 2 years but thats something I dont have control over. His clients, his advice. But if you want some real risk analysis done then get a proper person in to do it.

Actually - you've missed the point - the point is do the benefits of Windows 10 outweigh the benefits of staying put. No they dont in most cases. not yet.
The list of work arounds needing to be put into place to get things working is growing - like antiviruses suddenly not running right without patching and lots of updating - things that were never mentioned in the microsoft upgrade now literature.

From a risk point of view you are buying into a NEW operating system, with unknown issues being discovered and already demonstrated flaws with updates etc crashing systems.   Several of the first updates made a horrible mess of a lot of computers.
From a risk point of view you are introducing a range of new security issues that need to be locked down such as live tiles, more networking complexity, the Wifi Share options - again let that settle and decent processes be put in place before adopting. Conservative, not brain dead. Do you have a process in place to mitigate the Wifi share risks? Have you even started to look at your security as an inside out not outside in job? Many It companies havent.

The first point above, on its own is a bit of a hurdle, as Microsoft wont let you opt out of updates unless you are a domain joined enterprise user.

Most businesses in NZ are small businesses, most too small to warrant a full domain system. They want to do the basics of file sharing, email, web browsing, printing, word, excel and accounting. Not a lot else normally.   If they had taken up windows 10 as first adopters they would already have gone through the pain of uninstallling office, installing uupdates and reinstalling office when one of the update clapped out. They might also have gone through the pain of having any machine with non intel graphics from other vendors cause continuous boot looping.

To call most businesses a home user, just becuse they dont have a domain is ludicrous. They have business needs, and putting in a domain to sort those out so they meet your criteria for what is a business is not one of them. most businesses have three to four people in them. but they are still a business.

Now a proper person like ahsol above, would have you move to Windows 10 - ignoring business risk. No one has ever been harmed taking a conservative approach, and waiting 12-18 months ( not two years jhsol) is conservative, not luddite approach, allowing time for a system to mature before moving onto it. i am also willing to bet a proper person like jhsol above will also have moved you onto windows 8 - which would have been a shocking mistake, or vista. Proper people like jhsol told me I was dumb and a luddite for not moving clients onto Windows vista - that i should move with the times - and that worked out really well for those who did -didn't it.

I find it saddening the number of richard craniums that feel they have some moral mandate to slag off people they dont agree with. when I start a discussion, taking a position i may or may not agree with, like the original post looking at the negatives of moving on up to Win 10, it doesn't mean I am not a real IT person, but may actually mean i am looking to engage in a robust disussion around the pros and cons of a position.

So jhsol - as a proper IT person - have you moved you clients onto the latest version of Android and iOS?? Are all your clients upgraded to Mattterhorn, Running Linux systems like Ubuntu in 1504 version? Are your clients set up with PHP 7, secured and locked down with the best new updates to remove any possible exploits like Panda. How about the processes you have put in place when Apple removed all anti viruses from iOS only to be screwed over by the virus coming out of china in September? I'll bet my proper IT process and advice against yours any day, and just in case you are wondering this was written on a VM running advanced test software updates for beta version of Firefox and similar under virtualisation on a Windows 10 box hosted on an SSD driven stack of three of the latest Intel NUC systems including their micro PC, atom driven computing stick. Its backed up using replicating file system driven using CIFS / webDav and RSync all made possible by the latest and greatest Shadow Protect / Shadow Copy systems that Windows offers. Not bad for a luddite.

Now i have to go and revise my 12 page check list of cloud security requirements for the third <international airline firms name removed here> contract we were recommended to their suppliers to guide them through in almost as many months. Why? Because we understand what risk is from a technical, social, business, financial, legal and moral view point. We kow how to leverage technology without getting people burnt. Jhsol, Again, I'll bet my skills against yours any day so why dont you rack space off before I school you good and proper like a real person can.

nunz

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# 1405963 14-Oct-2015 21:12

portunus: I could be biased working at a University where we are serving primarily younger end users - we will be moving to Windows 10 for 2016 all going well. Highly locked down corporate envirionments are not something these users have grown up with or even know. We need to adapt to what this generation expect as they will be in the workforce sooner or later.

Does it really matter if people do a bit of social networking or personal emails during work time as long as they get the job done? ...

/ben

Yes. it does. Here is why.

Businesses run on profit - and while a lot of people will make you think profit, especially the profit a business owner gets from 'exploiting' the workers is bad, it's not.
Every cent of wastage is a cent less of profit.
Every cent less of profit is a step closer to a business failing
Every step closer to a business failing is a step closer to people losing thier jobs
Which is a step closer to them not feeding thier kids or themselves.

A single person using social media for non-business purposes is not wasting one persons time but many. The true cost of them using social media can be looked at as follows:
1- Their time - being paid for by the hour - not being used for the business.
2 - The time of all the people they have just tweeted, facebooked, epalmed, texted or whatever other variety of social media they have just used take to read it - lets say maybe 10 people get it and see it.
3 - Research will tell you that people who multi task are more stressed and also that a small interuption in a work flow or chain of thought can cause around 5-10 minutes of wastage while they get back on track again. (little less take time to respond).
4 - Lets assume that there is only 5 minutes of lost time per person while the recipients respond, think about, read, share of whatever was social mediaed out. That's 55 minutes (11 x 5 minutes) lost time in the Nz economy.

Now lets make some other assumptions - most businesses workers are a cog in a chain of processes. Secretarys type letters to be passed on to be read, factory works make components that are passed to others to assemble, bosses organise stuff and clear the way for others to work unhindered (we wish) That 11 x 5 minutes of interruption has staggered other peoples output later to be completed - ripple affect.

we have all seen the co-worker that steps outside ofr a cigarette break - not just at morning tea of afternoon tea but other times. We have all resented them and thought , hell if i stepped outside randomly for 5 minutes I'ld get fired but somehow smokers seem to get away with it (poor addicted saps). we resent that time - why? Becuase it is unfair we are working and they aren't. Ditto social media junkies. work is work, play time is play time.

If your boss wants you to be available after hours to take calls and messages - that's fine, if you agree to it and get compensated for it. If not, dont do it. work is work, play is play.

Lastly - if a bus driver, or stop sign operator, or heavy industry worker working on dangereous machinery started to facebook, tweet, myspace or epalm people while they were working we would scream bloody murder - its dangerous and fire them. Why should people in easy jobs like desk jobs or reception work get to do it and others dont? That's unfair isn't it? Especially as the types of people we dont want on their phones doing the social media thing are normally less well paid than most white collar workers. Hey, if you get paid more you should work harder, not slack more.

Not so many years ago - if someone took a personal call in work time people were a bit agahst, the boss was likely to go you and it was seen as time wasting during work time. now people demand to be allowed cell phones in the work place, they demand to be allowed access to social media? Why? Why should they dunig work time. work is work -play is play.

Social media usage in the work place is running sore on the face of the nation. It is an addiction like those addicted to nicotine, its just that it's easier to hide your time wasting fix as you can hide behind a screen and not have to take it outside - doing the walk of shame, like the smokers.

I predict, should our civilisation last long enough to do so, that we will look back at the social media frenzie the same way we do at advetising promoting the benfits of smoking or the thylidamide tablet to help morning sickness. We will look at the toll in posture, health, lack of fitness, RSI, lack of social skills, demotivation, loss of real skills, time wastage, EMF exposure, chagging up of valuable bandwidth etc in horror wondering what in hades we were thinking.

And if you think I am wrong consider this - Not so many years ago Xtra offered their Go Large plan. People leapt on it like a bunny on heat. And the system collapsed, the internet turned into goo and businesses suffered as the networks, emails, websites etc crawled to almost a halt. Why? Social media - no, but the same selfish, me-ism as unfettered social media usage, had people downloading porn, films, music etc at massive rates. Now we look back and go Duh!!! what were they thinking. And yet her we are doing the same thing again. social media and unfettered me-ism. If you dont bleieve me look at the forum re Vodafone cable - how often do you see the words , the cable is fixed but we still get outages caused by over usage. social media, movie watching and other things we have the right to - without considering the cost.

Work is work, play is play - modern youngsters do have a tendency to think it is all about them - and often make shocking workers - thanks social media.but worse than that - we should be teaching our youth to put social media away. Their inability to govern the differnce in times allocated for work, play, relaxtion etc means they dont. They do take work calls, when they should be playing. They do play when they should be working. It's not healthy. It leads to stress, a constant keyed up expectation they may be called for work. People who are on pagers will tell you, that even if it is only the occasional page they get, it is still there in the back of their mind keeping them keyed up .

one of the best things we can do is force the separation between work and home , work time and play time. Its healthy - and part of that starts with NO social media at work. no work in social time.

nunz

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# 1405973 14-Oct-2015 21:20

Hammerer:
nunz: ... I cannot see a business case out of the answers given that a business owner would accept in a risk / reward analysis...

....Ultimately that denies those businesses the possibility of a reasonable option because of your oft stated and vehement bias.
.

What oft stated and vehement bias?

nunz

Dreal

418 posts

Ultimate Geek

# 1407437 15-Oct-2015 20:25

nathan: Where is the SWOT analysis. This is all mumbo jumbo anecdotes. If you see no benefits of Windows 10 don't do anything. Security is the biggest game changer in Win10, and if you don't see it, take another look. Win7 is already in Extended Support.

Yeah that's not a SWOT. That's just a list of things the OP doesn't like. Most of them aren't even risks, but are listed under risks. Not even really close.

For mobile touch devices, I find Windows 10 is the bees knees. For desktops, there's a few tweaks needed to make it run well. But it is faster, and the snap functions/multi-tasking is great. Also some stuff is closer to 'the surface', and the search is better.

It's somewhat simplified, but not iOS or Android level. All the same stuff is still there. Commercially, I'd say it would depend on the client needs.

Win 7 is pretty solid, but it slows down a lot, the longer you use it, it's terrible for touch, its network sharing isn't very compatible with later versions. It's kind of untidy. But being older, its more reliable.

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Dreal

418 posts

Ultimate Geek

# 1407439 15-Oct-2015 20:33

Sure social media shouldn't be at work. At least not as much as it is. And we probably will look back at as a disaster, not so much because of productivity but because of the influence on community/society. Already the term 'the great disconnect' has been coined, and I think will gain popularity.

But at a network level, all that is needed is router/firewall stuff. The OS doesn't really matter.

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nunz

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# 1407953 16-Oct-2015 16:02

Dreal: Sure social media shouldn't be at work. At least not as much as it is. And we probably will look back at as a disaster, not so much because of productivity but because of the influence on community/society. Already the term 'the great disconnect' has been coined, and I think will gain popularity.

But at a network level, all that is needed is router/firewall stuff. The OS doesn't really matter.

By the same token there is a lot of research coming out that the younger social media generation is also more savy in a range of ways we older folk aren't. Different set of skills. The research indicates highly developed social and communication skills of differnt types.

Still shouldn't be doing it during work time - :)

nunz

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# 1407960 16-Oct-2015 16:06

Dreal:

But at a network level, all that is needed is router/firewall stuff. The OS doesn't really matter.

you have made my point re risk - that is an outside in lookat security - now days we need an inside out - router and firewalls are no longer adequate.

The Wifi sharing capabilities, a form of social networking, negate router security almost immediately. Every phone, smart device, blue tooth thingy whatsit etc is a non managed gateway.

Security from the gateway is inadequate and almost dangerously useless - a false security. an operating system that encourages this is a high risk to the business until they comletely tear aobut their traditional security and rebuild to handle Windows 10 and other similar gateways.

nunz

Dreal

418 posts

Ultimate Geek

# 1407965 16-Oct-2015 16:14

nunz:
Dreal:

But at a network level, all that is needed is router/firewall stuff. The OS doesn't really matter.

you have made my point re risk - that is an outside in lookat security - now days we need an inside out - router and firewalls are no longer adequate.

The Wifi sharing capabilities, a form of social networking, negate router security almost immediately. Every phone, smart device, blue tooth thingy whatsit etc is a non managed gateway.

Security from the gateway is inadequate and almost dangerously useless - a false security. an operating system that encourages this is a high risk to the business until they comletely tear aobut their traditional security and rebuild to handle Windows 10 and other similar gateways.

I was talking about social networking, at work. What are you talking about?

Tap That - Great cheap tablets and tablet accessories. Windows and Android, NZ based

nunz

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# 1407985 16-Oct-2015 16:45

Dreal:
nunz:
Dreal:

But at a network level, all that is needed is router/firewall stuff. The OS doesn't really matter.

you have made my point re risk - that is an outside in lookat security - now days we need an inside out - router and firewalls are no longer adequate.

The Wifi sharing capabilities, a form of social networking, negate router security almost immediately. Every phone, smart device, blue tooth thingy whatsit etc is a non managed gateway.

Security from the gateway is inadequate and almost dangerously useless - a false security. an operating system that encourages this is a high risk to the business until they comletely tear aobut their traditional security and rebuild to handle Windows 10 and other similar gateways.

I was talking about social networking, at work. What are you talking about?

I'm talking about the risk social networking and sharing poses to a business. Windows 10 - Wifi share - a form of social sharing of wifi connectivity. This happens inside a router / firewall not outside the firewall. As such filtering wont stop it. It puts a direct link into internal communications from within the firewall and unless a lot of work is done to scan internal traffic as thoroughly as external traffic, security breaches occur. The OS is as important, if not more important in the removal and management of social media.

Social network comms happen as often on other devices as they do on work machines. This negates any firewall checking.
Social network comms employ https and other protocols that step around router firewalls quite easily.
About the only way to protect systems from social networking is to ban all BYOD and personal devices and authenticate all traffic with internal encryption or authentication keys - at both a machine and application level . This requires OS working as part of your security mechanism.

For example. Figures below. work network with traditional firewall (orange) - protects them from the internet (red). Computers 234 connect to server hard wired, Computer 1 - via wifi. Device X - not part of the domain etc, cannot access any of the Green LAN.
Computer 1, with Windows 10,uses Wifi Sharing and give the routers password to Device X - suddenly device X is inside the network, and the traditional firewall has no protection to keep the network safe.

Device x gets the wifi password from a Windows 10 Device, via Windows 10 Wifi sharing - a form of social networking.

No other Os i know of has the ability to take out security in this manner - but Windows 10 does. Not only does Device X get the password to the wifi router, but so does everyone else in computer 1s contact list and possibly facebook list.

nunz

Dreal

418 posts

Ultimate Geek

# 1407990 16-Oct-2015 17:21

Having a encrypted wifi password, doesn't give you any priviledges on the network - its not a lot different from plugging a cable into rj45 really. And the password itself is encrypted, the user can't access it.

Security wise, if you are inside a businesses building, generally, the security can pretty easily be breached. A combination of sniffing and brute force delivers passwords pretty quick. That's the same for any Windows, Apple, Unix pretty much. Which is why the military use out of date modems - once you have a hardline security is kind of a doddle.

In general, I don't really see what your issue is with wifi sharing. All it does it provide a connection to the network (with no priveledges). Any sensitive data will still be protected by the network security structure (unless just the same as a wired cable plugged into rj45, you ran some sniffers and brute force etc for a day or so)

And if you really wanted, you could just have a check to ensure that the feature is turned off. There are probably other solutions too.

Let's say for example, you have a passworded proxy - the additional device won't even be able to access the external intenet via the wifi connection. Making it pretty much the same as a wired connection. Which, if you have a little blue cable, people have always been able to do.

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Dreal

418 posts

Ultimate Geek

# 1407996 16-Oct-2015 17:40

Actually scratch that - I see the issue. Give more people 'wired' type connections to the network to do hacking (which in most cases isn't hard), like password sniffing.

Has microsoft offered a solution to this? (Like not allowing wifi sharing on some networks) ...Surely they will....

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