Labour says police use of XP poor planning

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#1040517 9-May-2014 08:28

Jase2985:
There is just no simple/cost effective way to upgrade the OS on thousands of computers.

Err yes there is.. any decent Enterprise environment should be using something like SCCM, ZenWorks, Unicenter, Altiris etc.

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MikeB4

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#1040520 9-May-2014 08:34

All Government Agencies have been severely financially hamstrung in the last three years to meet the Government's surplus by 2014 promise. What it has done is built up a huge hidden deficit in waiting, all these deferred costs will need to be met but of course that will be after the election, that is as far as a politician can see. I would imagine the Police have wrestled money from OPEX to do this as they would not get Cabinet CAPEX approval to change.

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#1040521 9-May-2014 08:40

Upgrading an OS isn't just a case of upgrading the PCs, there are likely a number of line of business applications that will also need to be upgraded and this takes a lot of time and money.

As far as moving to opensource, this would require that all staff learn an OS that is likely to be totally different from what they currently use at work as well as at home. Its hard to get staff buy-in when going from one MS Office version to another let alone an entire platform change. Also NZ has a large base of MS support professionals which I doubt is matched (in numbers) by open source professionals which will result in a. lots of MS pros out of work and b. a shortage of opensource pros to actually implement the change over. Also all of those line of business apps will need to be re-written to work on an open source platform. hmmm I wonder how much all of that would cost.

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#1040523 9-May-2014 08:45

geekiegeek: Upgrading an OS isn't just a case of upgrading the PCs, there are likely a number of line of business applications that will also need to be upgraded and this takes a lot of time and money.

As far as moving to opensource, this would require that all staff learn an OS that is likely to be totally different from what they currently use at work as well as at home. Its hard to get staff buy-in when going from one MS Office version to another let alone an entire platform change. Also NZ has a large base of MS support professionals which I doubt is matched (in numbers) by open source professionals which will result in a. lots of MS pros out of work and b. a shortage of opensource pros to actually implement the change over. Also all of those line of business apps will need to be re-written to work on an open source platform. hmmm I wonder how much all of that would cost.

yep, Open source as a cost saver is a myth, the opposite is usually the outcome along with the eventual roll back costs.

charsleysa

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#1040529 9-May-2014 08:47

geekiegeek: Upgrading an OS isn't just a case of upgrading the PCs, there are likely a number of line of business applications that will also need to be upgraded and this takes a lot of time and money.

As far as moving to opensource, this would require that all staff learn an OS that is likely to be totally different from what they currently use at work as well as at home. Its hard to get staff buy-in when going from one MS Office version to another let alone an entire platform change. Also NZ has a large base of MS support professionals which I doubt is matched (in numbers) by open source professionals which will result in a. lots of MS pros out of work and b. a shortage of opensource pros to actually implement the change over. Also all of those line of business apps will need to be re-written to work on an open source platform. hmmm I wonder how much all of that would cost.

Exactly. Everyone says "go open-source" because it's free but they fail to realize that the only free part about it is downloading it and using it.

You still need to pay the cost of migration, the cost of training end users, the cost of porting (or even recreating) business software, the cost of acquiring IT staff that can manage the new platform.

All those costs added together far exceed the cost of doing a simple upgrade from XP to 8.1 because even incompatible software can be worked around for cheap since its still mostly the same underlying API.

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Stefan Andres Charsley

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#1040587 9-May-2014 09:25

charsleysa:
geekiegeek: Upgrading an OS isn't just a case of upgrading the PCs, there are likely a number of line of business applications that will also need to be upgraded and this takes a lot of time and money.

As far as moving to opensource, this would require that all staff learn an OS that is likely to be totally different from what they currently use at work as well as at home. Its hard to get staff buy-in when going from one MS Office version to another let alone an entire platform change. Also NZ has a large base of MS support professionals which I doubt is matched (in numbers) by open source professionals which will result in a. lots of MS pros out of work and b. a shortage of opensource pros to actually implement the change over. Also all of those line of business apps will need to be re-written to work on an open source platform. hmmm I wonder how much all of that would cost.

Exactly. Everyone says "go open-source" because it's free but they fail to realize that the only free part about it is downloading it and using it.

You still need to pay the cost of migration, the cost of training end users, the cost of porting (or even recreating) business software, the cost of acquiring IT staff that can manage the new platform.

All those costs added together far exceed the cost of doing a simple upgrade from XP to 8.1 because even incompatible software can be worked around for cheap since its still mostly the same underlying API.

I once worked with one of the top Linux IT Pro's from SA for a short time. I recall attending a site with him and the CEO of the site asking him to install Linux. This guy looked at him and said, if you are trying to save money and I am looking after you, I'll buy you a copy of Windows.

trig42

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#1040595 9-May-2014 09:36

We still have just over 200 PCs on our network running XP.
They are all behind a fairly strict firewall, with GPOs to lock them down even further. About half of them run a POS application (along with PC Eftpos). They do not even use the internet (but are all connected to our WAN/Intranet).

We are not panicking about the upgrade, but it is planned to be done by year end. We will not be going to Win8, Win7x64 is where we will be by the end of the year. Of more importance, and being done at the same time, is the migration of about 13 servers from Server 2003 as support for that ending next April is more important. Again, not panicking and most of the migrations will be simple and done by October.

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charsleysa

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#1040596 9-May-2014 09:38

trig42: We still have just over 200 PCs on our network running XP.
They are all behind a fairly strict firewall, with GPOs to lock them down even further. About half of them run a POS application (along with PC Eftpos). They do not even use the internet (but are all connected to our WAN/Intranet).

We are not panicking about the upgrade, but it is planned to be done by year end. We will not be going to Win8, Win7x64 is where we will be by the end of the year. Of more importance, and being done at the same time, is the migration of about 13 servers from Server 2003 as support for that ending next April is more important. Again, not panicking and most of the migrations will be simple and done by October.

Any reason to go with Windows 7 instead of Windows 8?

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Stefan Andres Charsley

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#1040599 9-May-2014 09:39

charsleysa:
trig42: We still have just over 200 PCs on our network running XP.
They are all behind a fairly strict firewall, with GPOs to lock them down even further. About half of them run a POS application (along with PC Eftpos). They do not even use the internet (but are all connected to our WAN/Intranet).

We are not panicking about the upgrade, but it is planned to be done by year end. We will not be going to Win8, Win7x64 is where we will be by the end of the year. Of more importance, and being done at the same time, is the migration of about 13 servers from Server 2003 as support for that ending next April is more important. Again, not panicking and most of the migrations will be simple and done by October.

Any reason to go with Windows 7 instead of Windows 8?

Oh no not again. Please don't let another of these threads get derailed by this conversation.

charsleysa

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#1040611 9-May-2014 09:45

networkn:
charsleysa:
trig42: We still have just over 200 PCs on our network running XP.
They are all behind a fairly strict firewall, with GPOs to lock them down even further. About half of them run a POS application (along with PC Eftpos). They do not even use the internet (but are all connected to our WAN/Intranet).

We are not panicking about the upgrade, but it is planned to be done by year end. We will not be going to Win8, Win7x64 is where we will be by the end of the year. Of more importance, and being done at the same time, is the migration of about 13 servers from Server 2003 as support for that ending next April is more important. Again, not panicking and most of the migrations will be simple and done by October.

Any reason to go with Windows 7 instead of Windows 8?

Oh no not again. Please don't let another of these threads get derailed by this conversation.

Haha I feel like a troll now every time I ask someone for reasons as to why they choose Windows 7 instead of Windows 8.

But I agree, let's not derail the thread, I was just wondering if there was a reason other than the UI.

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Stefan Andres Charsley

trig42

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#1040644 9-May-2014 10:00

charsleysa:
networkn:
charsleysa:
trig42: We still have just over 200 PCs on our network running XP.
They are all behind a fairly strict firewall, with GPOs to lock them down even further. About half of them run a POS application (along with PC Eftpos). They do not even use the internet (but are all connected to our WAN/Intranet).

We are not panicking about the upgrade, but it is planned to be done by year end. We will not be going to Win8, Win7x64 is where we will be by the end of the year. Of more importance, and being done at the same time, is the migration of about 13 servers from Server 2003 as support for that ending next April is more important. Again, not panicking and most of the migrations will be simple and done by October.

Any reason to go with Windows 7 instead of Windows 8?

Oh no not again. Please don't let another of these threads get derailed by this conversation.

Haha I feel like a troll now every time I ask someone for reasons as to why they choose Windows 7 instead of Windows 8.

But I agree, let's not derail the thread, I was just wondering if there was a reason other than the UI.

We have a lot of in-house developed Apps. Most of them run OK on 8, but a couple have issues and full testing has not been done. Our POS system is a bit of a dog too and I think there may be issues there that they are (slowly) working through.
I think they have made the decision to skip 8, wait for 9 (just like we have skipped Vista - I have never seen a Vista machine here).

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#1040654 9-May-2014 10:09

A concise statement on the business drivers for a particular enterprise decision would be on topic. Remeber this is the ICT forum and not the offtopic forum. UI might or might not be one of those items, but there is no reason for anyone to debate the UI itself.

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#1040836 9-May-2014 13:54

gzt: A concise statement on the business drivers for a particular enterprise decision would be on topic. Remeber this is the ICT forum and not the offtopic forum. UI might or might not be one of those items, but there is no reason for anyone to debate the UI itself.

There are ALREADY long threads covering this over and over. A statement of that nature will simply draw a group of people to opine in either direction which is pointless.

andrew027

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#1040865 9-May-2014 15:00

I'm not sure wht Police have been picked on here - I would imagine there are quite a few government departments still on XP. The quite large one I work for still is (our standard desktop environment is XP and Office 2003!) but we are all being upgraded to Windows 7 and Office 2010 throughout June and July.

It's not just a matter of rolling out a standardised install - there are a number of old business critcal applications that need to be tested (and sometimes updated or replaced) first.

And, of course, while paying good money to update software (and often hardware, depending how old your desktop is) might be a gimme for a lot of Geekzone regulars, if the government had forked out the money to update every desktop in the public service six years ago when XP wasn't past it's use-by date, you can bet the opposition and 80% of the public would be complaining about the cost to the taxpayer.

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#1040866 9-May-2014 15:00

I'm not sure why the Police have been picked on here - I would imagine there are quite a few government departments still on XP. The quite large one I work for is (our standard desktop environment is XP and Office 2003!) but we are scheduledto be upgraded to Windows 7 and Office 2010 throughout June and July.

It's not just a matter of rolling out a standardised desktop image - there are a number of old business critical applications that need to be tested (and sometimes updated or replaced) first.

And, of course, while paying good money to update software (and often hardware, depending how old your desktop is) might be a gimme for a lot of Geekzone regulars, if the government had forked out the money to update every desktop in the public service six years ago when XP wasn't past it's use-by date, you can bet the opposition and 80% of the public would be complaining about the cost to the taxpayer.

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