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UK Government Pays Microsoft £5.5M For Extended Support of Windows XP
whoever57 (658626) writes "The UK Government has signed a contract worth £5.5M (almost $9M) for extended support and security updates for Windows XP for 12 months after April 8. The deal covers XP, Exchange 2003 and Office 2003 for users in central and local government, schools and the National Health Service. The NHS is in need of this deal because it was estimated last September that 85% of the NHS's 800,000 computers were running XP."
so... what the rest of the XP users need is a mole within... to distribute the windows update's!
I work with so many people as a Tech and so many cant afford a system upgrade (and I have tried to strip Vista/7/8 down to work)... ahh, the old and the young and dumb!
Seriously, why not go with a stable and boring distribution like Debian on these machines? What does XP offer that they so desperately need? I can't think of anything that the GNU/Linux community hasn't implemented themselves.
I wonder if these sorts of figures will be mentioned in the next "Total Cost of Ownership" study done by Microsoft.
Dear UK gov, please move to Linux/FOSS and stop wasting taxpayers money on that crap they call Microsoft.
What I would like to know is how much would it have cost to upgrade to Linux? As a UK Taxpayer, I would prefer my money to be invested in Linux systems instead of Microsoft.
If someone redistributes the patches, Windows XP would get another year for everybody.
It really annoys me when i hear of ppl not updating. It has been 13 years since windows xp came out. The fact that windows xp was out of support isnt new news. We had windows Vista then windows 7 then windows 8. At no point you thought you need to updated? I find it hard to believe that it cost that much to update your systems. I know nothing of exchange but for christ sakes later versions of office supports older format. I just dont get this type of crap. OMG we are on windows xp and they no longer supported what were we supposed to do for the last 13 years... There were no updates or alternatives at all. When i read this crap its a joke. I doubt its the IT problem more of a Bureaucrat problem. Windows, Linux, or OSx don't matter a bit. Same problem would happen. I only know how to use one version lets not upgrade cause i say so. Then there forced to update and it cost money. OS option doesn't matter. No reason they couldnt upgrade OS/software... they didnt want to. Now they have to suffer from skipping versions they didnt want to upgrade to. Kind of like a tax. Didnt upgrade to next version waited 10 years fine pay 3x more for that version. Dont know how to say this linux wise. But if you waited 10 years on a distro update since it would cost a litte. would you be suprised that a 10 year update cost money? I doubt it. No a real story here. Would cost the same to migrate from a 10 year old linux to a current version.
Is the ability to run Windows programs well
the problem is no microsoft... its the fact that no matter what company your with.. they dont update. The cost would probably be the same if you waited that long. File formats change and other things change.
The UK government should follow the example of the London Council and upgrade to Chromebooks and Chromeboxes. London Council Dumping Windows For Chromebooks To Save £400,000
sorry im really drunk but my post was about the fact if you wait 10 or 11 years to upgrade your system..... well it will cost you.... alot... I think that cost is OS independent. Just the way the world works. They had more than enough time to know that updates would stop.
From what i know chromebooks is a joke... They are all online... Even google online services have proven to not work 100%. You need a physical storage system. Not some cloud storage crap. Cause it will go down and it will go down at the worst time. Ohh you want to access that bill you wrote sorry google services are dont try back in a hour. Just wont cut it. For that reason London council is stupid. I would never trust my important data to a cloud service cause when i need it most it wont be there.
You'd be surprised the level of proficiency evident in software used in the Health sector. While you have companies like Phillips, GE, Honeywell, etc. doing things at the amazing end of the spectrum, you are quite likely to find fragmented silo'd business units running critical services using Microsoft Access 97 off a shared drive.
There would probably be a fair amount of work building replacement systems, transitioning functions across, and training staff.
Health is an area where unfortunately spending on IT may seem large, but in proportion it's not really. Certainly not from what I've sen.
The question is do you really thing said company would change if it was running with linux software?? if there charging that much for a driver do you not think they would charge just as much for linux kernal?
Why is no other company supporting XP?
It's all the customers fault, can't they control the entire hardware/software stack and afford to stay up to date?! Great opportunity for M$, make each of your legacy customers pay millions! Stupid customers!
With full security patches, bug fixes, etc..... because the government here in the UK is paying for it.
Now, as that comes from our taxes, why are these service packs that keep it secure and stable not available to everyone else here who has therefore paid for it?
£5.5M for a year's support for hundreds of thousands of of XP systems is extremely good value, and far cheaper than any other option.
Of course, they'll still be in the same position a year from now. But in government, if you pass the buck for long enough, it becomes someone else's problem.
I suspect that the uncertainty around the future of any given Linux desktop environment is a good reason for companies to stick to Mac OS or Windows.
So ........ please tell us more about the certain future of the Windows desktop.
I suspect that the training costs alone would be an enormous part of the project budget.
Yes, I paid thousands to be trained to find that KDE start button, and thousands more to find that "Libre Office Writer (Word Processor)" entry in the menu. Then I needed to be shown where all the letter keys were again. Then that Ctrl-s to save what I'd done - took me months on courses to get the hang of it.
Because otherwise you're a hypocrite
So what you're saying is that you're fine with money going to Red Hat but not Microsoft?
Definitely. Microsoft are douchebags.
to React OS
Anyone familiar with these types of situations?
Who benefits?
If I am a private home in the UK, am I entitled to download such updates?
If I am a private home somewhere else on Earth, will I be entitled to download such updates?
If Microsoft is making these updates, is Microsoft going to provide infrastructure to simply allow these updates to be downloaded (using the standard Windows Update mechanisms)?
Or, are these updates going to be privately-commissioned work, so that downloading them (even from a UK government building) would technically be piracy?
... an internal 'computer consultancy and advisory unit'. It did things similar to NIST in the US, and it was called the "Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency" (CCTA).
CCTA was where the UK Government put staff who were the equivalent of people like Alan Turing or Tommy Flowers, so they could be of general use to all government departments. It produced early 'Open Source' standards, amongst lots of other work, and was a leader in developing the current world IT Security standards of ISO 27001/2. It was HATED by the computer industry, who had to negotiate with it when proposing big government computer projects, and who found that CCTA knew what they were talking about.
They lobbied intensively against it, and in the 1990s it was closed down, with big computer consultancies taking over its position. It has now been airbrushed out of history. If it had stayed, the UK Government would have had an Open Source internal procurement standard....
No excuses! IF the UK government can pay for continued support, that means you still have to develop and test the updates anyways.,
You should offer users (who are not upgrading anyways) continued security updates for $20 per XP seat per year.
I can't believe in what you are saying. My feelings are exactly opposite. .... shape. .NET ... crap.
Exceptionally bad microsoft documentation and visual studio ide is in very
In the other hand linux has support, each stuff is very well documented from kernel to any user space app.
Manual pages are very good stuff, as well as much easier begin with development, etc.
You do not need any additional stuff in Linux. You can develop right now. It is major difference between Windows where you need M$ stuff, you can't just start.
Lot of GB, neverending installations,
I am running Linux on all PCs in our company for 12 years! Without one issue and only benefits. Of course, it is my opinion ;)
It is interesting government can give microsoft so much money. But they can switch to Linux and opensource freely, just one investition to develop necessary apps and thats all.
They can spend this money in pharmaceutics, etc. No, they rather use these money for microsoft support....
Very good government.
So why they choosed proprietary solution? Why they want vendor lock-in?
It is always choise of some very clever manager.
Still, they can switch. One investition for switching could cover one upgrade process to latest microsoft software.
Schools eh? That makes me wonder how many of those they're factoring into their costs!
I work in a school and we switched away from Windows XP (to 32-bit Windows 7) around three and a half years ago, with an added twist of moving to a VMWare ESXi server to host our new virtualised servers.
My job was to make all our existing software work, even the crummy old educational programs that we couldn't afford to upgrade. There actually wasn't much in the way of problems, mainly because we were going from a 32-bit XP install to a 32-bit Windows 7 image. At the time we had different build images for each department (so IT machines would have Photoshop baked into the image, the special educational needs computers would have dyslexia programs baked in etc). We moved from Office 2003 to 2010 at the same time, with Exchange also going from 2003 to 2010. We changed our licensing with Microsoft too, so we pay based on the number of staff in the school each year - that gives us access to pretty much everything, including SCCM (which we use for pushing out updates, installing programs and building PCs).
My job over the last year has been to migrate to 64-bit Windows 7. This proved more of a problem, as some software (such as Successmaker - we use an ancient version) really isn't happy in a 64-bit world, as it makes assumptions based on 32-bit directories etc. In the end Successmaker was made to work by writing some batch files and some kludging to run Java directly rather than via their wrapper. It all works, which is the main thing, and the users wouldn't even have noticed a thing.
As an added bonus, we now have one build image (pretty much vanilla x64 Windows 7) with SCCM pushing out all the custom programs depending on where the PC or laptop is going to be used. It all works very well and although it took a fair bit of fiddling to set it all up it was well worth it. We're already planning our next move, which is likely to be to Windows 9 when it comes out.
I'm sure we're not the only school who, knowing that XP was dying in 2014, decided to move over a few years in advance. Hopefully that money being paid to Microsoft doesn't include anything for our 800 or so PCs!
800K PCs is a lot of stuff.
I wonder if anybody tried to calculate the costs of migrating that to a server farm with XP running in VMs?
If they use old hardware , then the RAM shouldn't be a problem.
If they use mostly the office software, then the CPU performance also shouldn't be a problem.
One can theoretically pack few dozens of those on a single blade.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
Hell, if you paid me nine million dollars, I'd support the damned thing!
Like I said before, this is going to hurt businesses the most because upgrading to new systems gets extremely costly very fast. Most of the systems won't even be protected by those updates because they're not part of the government deal which is fucked up... XP is going to be a FFA for hackers and you bet the shit will hit the fan once the mayhem starts. They could have at least waited for usage to be under 5 percent or hand over the source to someone capable of protecting the users.
If Microsoft has half-a-brain, they will see this as the business opportunity it is. Charge a fee for additional support from every government and organization that will pay, and it's quite the business model
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
It's okay! Lots of the NHS has upgraded ... to Vista.
Yeah, I was so happy going into a consultation at Whipps Cross and seeing they were running Vista.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
The Dutch government made a similar deal, and I guess some others did as well: http://webwereld.nl/beveiliging/82035-rijk-koopt-xpocalypse-af-via-extra-support-van-microsoft
From the vaults:
REAL VIRTUALITY, Seattle, Thursday 2099 (NNN) — Microsoft Corporation has announced a limited one-off extension of availability of its Windows XP operating system to April 2101 after criticism from large customers and analysts. This is the fifty-sixth extension of XP’s availability since 2008.
Through successive releases of Microsoft’s flagship Windows operating system, demand for XP has remained an important factor for businesses relying on stable XP-specific software and installations, who have pushed back strongly against the software company’s attempts to move them to later versions. Windows administration skills have become rare in recent years and consultants have demanded high fees. Reviving Windows administrators from cryogenic freezing has proven insufficient to fill the market gap, as almost all begged to work on COBOL instead.
“Windows XP is currently in the extremely very prolonged super-extended support phase and Microsoft encourages customers to migrate to Windows for Neurons 2097 as soon as feasible,” said William Gates V, CEO and great-grandson of the company founder. “Spare change?”
Microsoft Corporation, along with Monsanto Corporation and the RIAA, exists as a protected species in the Seattle Memorial Glass Crater Bad Ideas And Warnings To The Future National Park in north-west Washington on the radioactive remains of what was once the planet Earth, under the protection of our Linux-based superintelligent robot artificial intelligence overlords. Company revenues for 2098 were over $15.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
The only thing windows does that linux doesn't is ...
This is just completely wrong.
The biggest thing that windows provides to the NHS is continuity. The second most important feature (a corollary) is a trained user base - one that knows the in's and out's, bug, vagiaries and shortcuts of the existing system. Following on from that is a known, compatible set of hardware that interfaces with all the other systems (after years of development, testing and debugging) and importantly: is reliable in a life-or-death environment where patients wellbeing is at stake.
which will soon change if valve is sucessful
Valve? Seriously? you're talking about playing little computer games in a hospital environment?
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
I have not heard anything about the real issue that will hit almost everybody.
The majority of cash registers that are digitized run XP so say hello to massive credit card theft after the 8th.
Most of these devices are connected to the internet directly by shopkeepers who don't know IT if it hit them in the face.
Considering the costs in downtime, training, lost productivity, user frustration, etc., £ 5.5 million is probably the most cost-effective response to XP end of life I've heard of yet. To say nothing of the lost brain cells.
They should revoke all copyrights and patents instead if Microsoft won't sell, license, or support the software.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The real sad part, is that it appears to government's and educational facilities to pay for extended support. Then to actually upgrade and move on.
This is really the wake up call that proves how much government runs on crisis management and nobody budgets for anything. The most any government looks to the future is the next day. The end result, is students using decades old technology, programs that are outdated, and yes as much as I don't think Linux is much better given its low desktop figures it at least would be a modern OS with support. I would much rather suggest a more supported OS like Chrome OS on Chromebooks however then Linux per say. The problem is not what OS to use, because even modern Linux needs modern hardware these days. No, the problem is a lack of planning for the day when you must upgrade hardware and software. Which apparently the US is not alone in its inability to plan ahead.
They didn't need to update before, their system worked, did what it was supposed to. You are complaining that they didn't update because of software changes? I say it was because of hardware changes needed. Have you wondered why xp was so popular? It ran on minimum hardware, as low as 256 k memory, and 386 machines. What does it take to do a modern system, Windows, 2G minimum, for the 7, 8 will run on 150 but damn slow. I've tried it. But a 386, still limits you to the oldest versions of Ubuntu/mint, I like mint, because my significant other likes the windows feel. Shucks, xp wil run in VM on a 286, Now thats geting old and slow,
Better yet, has anyone thought of running the main machine with it's installed OS, and running a Virtual machine connected to the appliance with with the old software. That way you trade out your machines when they go bad, Not waiting for the updates from any system.
Now we know what happens to old, un-supported commercial software: It morphs into extortion-ware.
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
So you would be OK if cars made before the turn of the century were not allowed on the roads anymore?
I quite like how the Chrome OS works, although I'm probably going to do a factory reset, pull the drive, replace it with a larger one, and install a real Linux -- running Debian via crouton doesn't seem to be stable.
I know you have a not-entirely-retarded axe to grind about cloud services, but let's think for a minute about how this must have been implemented. This device is not a thin client, and it does not boot off the network nor Internet. In point of fact it does have local storage, albeit not much, and in no sense is it "all online". The apps are written with HTML/CSS/JS, but you can certainly run them offline, and create and save documents as you like. Documents you create are associated with your Google account, and they are generally mirrored to Google Drive. This allows one to reset the system more or less at will.
There are a lot of dumb people in the world, and before you start labelling others as such you might want to check your assumptions. Unless you just like tilting at strawmen, of course.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Maybe what I'm saying wouldn't have been trivial but is seems to me a HUGE HUGE HUGE opportunity was missed by the Linux community. With all the linux distributions would it have been that technically difficult to make a version which ran on the windows file system AND ASSUMED PRIMARY CONTROL OF THE OPERATING SYSTEM FUNCTION while leaving all microsoft software in place to run on the remaining SANDBOXED kernel?
I'm not talking about dual boot or even installing windows on top of linux -- I'm talking about Linux moving in to an existing Windows system and taking over as a symbiont / overlord. Yeah, I know about WINE but after all these years it seems that wine really hasn't been able to master the nuances of things like quickbooks (probably the ONE most important piece of software which keeps people tied to Windows, as the Mac and online versions are pale shadows.
IMO the most important thing required to secure XP from the doubtless coming storm of exploits would be to isolate it from the internet -- sidestep any and all steps for a windows app to directly (or through the kernel) access the internet. But that doesn't seem such an incredible hurtle. Effectively all the "updates" for various pieces of commercial software are NOT functional updates at all but, rather, security patches. Remove internet access and quickbooks from 2003 (which, btw, was a VASTLY better piece of software than the crap intuit is selling these days) would work just fine until 2050 ... or until gnucash can finally get its act together and figure out IT'S THE INTERFACE, STUPID).
sorry...trying to figure out where my comment went.
I want to know what caused the executables to break. Some programs that work fine on XP will not work on 7.
The money spent by the German government to switch over to Linux is now looking like money well spent... ...how much more money will be spent if the NHS can't get their sh*t together a year from now.
LOL.
Considering just how many Windows XP systems the must have, with a sizable fraction of them being the sort you CAN’T upgrade (due to there being no Linux or Win 7 version of some software packages, literally or practically), this was probably the best option.
From Microsoft’s perspective, they want to stop supporting an ancient OS. So it’s reasonable for them to charge for additional support. It’s actually probably the UK government that got the better deal here, since Microsoft would be able to function a bit more efficiently if they could just chuck it.
Someone else mentioned DRM for old software that you can’t virtualize, like those old printer port dongles that were required to run some software. I don’t know UK law, but I’m betting it’s illegal right now to crack or reverse engineer those things, like the DMCA in the US. If I were in parliament, I’d be about ready to propose a bill to make it legal to crack them in just this sort of situation, where you’re not violating the original intent of the license agreement. Just one license to one machine. In some cases, the DRM was moronic anyway, because the software is useless without the much more expensive piece of equipment it was attached to.
It goes both ways, though. At a company I once worked for, we sold some recording software that worked with our graphics cards. It turns out that since it was just an X11 extension, it would work with other graphics cards, so one govermnent entity started making unlicensed copies and using them with competitors’ cards. We were pissed. We were pissed that they were violating the licensing agreement, and we were pissed that we had to add some bullshit license key system to ensure that they complied with our contractual agreements. We didn’t believe in it, and we didn’t want to waste the resources on it. (And we all hated things like Flex LM with a passion. Most unreliable and brittle system on the planet.) But it was easier than trying to sue them or even just argue with them. We used a technological means to make it super inconvenient (not not impossible) to not comply with already-agreed licensing terms, and they kept buying more of our products without so much as a minor disagreement (because they knew they were in the wrong in the first place and were in no position to complain). It also means that when they want to migrate a copy of the software from an old machine that died to a new one, it’s inconvenient for both them and us. But they made their bed.
Seriously, they could use the software that they once used. It worked in the 90's, health problems have not changed since then. Useless upgrades. Windoze, hah!
01/01/01
Its irresponsible for Microsoft to not release them and knowingly put millions at risk.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This just shows what we want in industry:
We want a stable long term Operating System.
We don't want to be going through a costly upgrade process every few years for absolutely no benefit other than the latest shiny new mcguffin that is of no use to us whatsoever. Sell that crap to the idiot users who think this is necessary to make them feel that throwing everything out is progress.
We use computers for the PROGRAMS - The OS should support us in this, not get in the way by changing the interface and API and compatibility surface for no good reason.
The scaremongering on this whole thing annoys me so much; Windows 7 has a MUCH larger attack surface than XP, yet people think it is more secure?! I went through the same thing with Win98 and Win2k back in the day - People saying Win98 was old and Win2k and WinXP were far more secure. Well look how that turned out when sasser came along: Win98 was completely immune to sasser whereas Win2k and WinXP got it up the proverbial. Why? Larger Attack Surface. XP and Win2k have FAR more services running than Win98, and Win7 and Win8 have yet more.
The only reason Win7 doesn't get owned so badly is because it has a firewall like XP and a modicum of default AV. UAC has been hacked past since day 1 and a lot of domains need it to be disabled for some GP scripts to work properly anyway. With a good firewall and antivirus, the biggest security hole is the user falling victim to fraudware and if the dumbing down of things like the Metro interface and abolition of menus to the horrible ribbon interface is anything to go by, god help us all if we're relying on user intelligence to avoid that security hole...
On a related note and in case you didn't know Windows 7 mainsteam support ENDS NEXT YEAR; It will then enter Extended support. So all you poor bastards who've only just finished your migrations, better start gearing up for the Windows 8 migration!
Yes we know that email is just a small neglected part of it even if the guy that made the mistake of closing the deal did not.
Some people just want an email system and they get sold MS Exchange. While the mail transfer agent and various other email aspects in the MS Exchange collection are not ideal they are there and people do use them. Various tricks and third party additions can be used to make it work in such an environment but the best choice IMHO is to take the advice of the name and exchange it for something else.
In larger operations where email is only the icing on the cake as to why MS Exchange is there then it is a totally different story. However, many of those portions have not progressed much since 2003 and many of them were utter crap before that. People had a good reason to upgrade a decade ago but not much reason since.
this is not a windows problem. the fault is not on NHS extending windows life or relying on windows, the failure is in NHS not demanding a open source driver written up to standards that could made upgrade possible (ie. separation of protocol/communication, hardware specification interface)
until they don't start pushing back on the vendors, they get this kind of lock in.
I love it
When your IT guys move to Windows 7 for the central system, you better hope it can connect to it to store the images. You can't virtualise it because the DRM on the interface cost the manufacturer at least £10,000 to implement to stop you doing precisely that.
Sooner or later, you develop institutional memory, and every hospital in Britain refuses to buy any medical device that implements DRM, so you never get into that situation again.
Or at least, that's what would happen in a sane world, where technical decisions were made by technical people.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
But only ''for 12 months'' of support.
I wonder why they don't just switch to Linux that will would run on their existing machines and likely run all their existing software applications.
So in a year, after paying MS for 12 months of extended support (whatever little help that amounts to) they will then need to pay big bucks for both Win 8 (or whatever MS sells them) AND pay bigger bucks for machines with enough processor power and memory to run the new MS OS on.
The U.K's National Health Service certainly is a sucker for wasting taxpayer money needlessly on computer resources.
~ VillageElder
So what do you get for 9 million dollars? A phone call? "HELP! I've lost my folder!". Come on give me a break. The UK govt. has an IT dept. for nearly anything that's going to currently happen to XP. Virus? Microsoft's not helping there really. An AV company perhaps. Microsoft shutting the door on the virus through the OS? Truly if the XP doors haven't been shut by now, there's no shutting them. There's something else going on.
Seems to me Steam could easily say:
Hardcore compatible and pro gamers:
Here's your hardware list including specific parts for everything to build the "Official Steam Spec Competition Console" This is exactly what is used in tournaments, including what RAM, SSD and CPU with legal speeds and sizes. Running anything else in tournament play is cheating.
Power gamers:
Here's the high end stuff we use at Steam HQ and we absolutely know works, expensive stuff, but no worries
Regular:
Here's the stuff we follow and will get done in a hurry if we hear a problem
Everything else:
Here's the minimums. It should work, if you have probs, check ubuntu boards for help.
Won't work, and probably not gonna:
Here's the stuff that we've given up on. If you keep it running, you'll probably learn a lot. Good luck.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
No sarcasm here (really) -> You have to remember that not everyone is as smart as you.
Lots of folks only know enough to realize they'd bankrupt and lose their medical business trying to reverse engineer and develop software.
Sometimes 'in-house' just isn't an option. An unbelievable amount of the time, it's as unworkable as in-house developing your own transport vehicles instead of buying them from car manufacturers.
I know of a critical application to an eye surgeon practice (2 surgeons) that scans the retina and 3d maps it for the surgeons to track swelling measured in single micrometers. Happily for them, it's running on 7 (this decade's XP). Unfortunately, the 'house' to 'in-house develop' in is a medical outfit that knows nothing about how to do in-house software/hardware/optics development..
Regardless of the price, there is simply no way on earth they're going to be able to reverse engineer that machine/software setup, build the machines and write the software. They're doctors, and the imaging machine development had to cost at least a million, minimum, before you even start talking about patents to license. Hell, reverse engineering and replicating a 1960's sports car is a 1/3 million dollar project, and that is for a company that has already done it and knows exactly what they're doing. Learning how to do their first car cost several million dollars in real money through the bank account.
Even when you start talking about something as simple as billing systems, you still have metric f***tons of paperwork and legal crap for HIPAA compliance, and you have to spend another few tens of thousands of dollars in brib..., er, compliance studies and certifications, with approved Health Department pet consultants who are often relatives of DC power brokers.
It's just a mess.
And all the above assumes that the doctors WANT to become software developers.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
If government busybodies in the UK are anything like they are here in the US, all this means is this:
"Horray! Another year of not having to do anything to fix the problem!"
Very wrong - MS Exchange is a mail server plus a LOT of other things.
Early on (eg. before the 2003 version) the mail server and database to hold email were IMHO the main functions of the collection. Both were IMHO far below the usual Microsoft release quality and an utter joke but obviously some work went on for the 2003 version.
Or your users have not shown much interest in the calendar functions etc.
Zimbra, google whatever or even just plain old sendmail can replace MS Exchange depending on what subset of the features the users are actually using. If they are using 100% of the features in MS Exchange then it's a good fit and there is no point in exchanging it for something else, but some places only use a tiny fraction of what is in there and can go with something else.
Zontar's "touched in the head" by schizophrenic multiple personality disorder http://slashdot.org/comments.p... and manic depression http://slashdot.org/comments.p... now go take those meds, you whacko brain damaged loon - whenever you start posting with your many anonymous coward replies personas, it's meds time for you! Lmao...
"You barge into discussions with your off-topic hosts file nonsense" - by Zontar The Mindless (9002) on Friday April 11, 2014 @09:51PM (#46731153) FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
You said my "APK Hosts File Engine" is a virus/malware http://slashdot.org/comments.p... but it's EASILY PROVABLE it's not, right there in that link too.
Now PROVE YOUR FALSE ACCUSATION above: Show me a quote OR POST of me posting off topic on hosts where they did NOT apply... go for it!
---
You avoided backing up your accusation where YOU said I say you are Barbara, not Barbie = TomHudson (same person http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... , & sockpuppeteer like you) -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
Funny you can't back up your "bluster" there either, lol...
---
Why, Lastly?
You're crackers! See here multiple personality disorder http://slashdot.org/comments.p... + manic depression http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
APK
P.S.=> So, THIS quote below is my policy on sockpuppeteers like you Zontar = TrollingForHostsFiles (your sockpuppetry):
"The only way to a achieve peace, is thru the ELIMINATION of those who would perpetuate war (sockpuppet masters like YOU, troll -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ). THIS IS MY PROGRAMMING -> http://start64.com/index.php?o... & soon, I will be UNSTOPPABLE..." - Ultron 6 FROM -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Which quite obviously, I am, since none of you DOLTISH TROLLS are able to validly technically disprove my points on hosts enumerated in the link to my program above of how hosts give users of them more speed, security, reliability, & anonymity... period!
(Trolls like YOU that use sockpuppets http://slashdot.org/comments.p... (your sockpuppet "alterego" TrollingForHostsFiles) & TomHudson - Barbara, not Barbie too http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... before you)
... apk
"You barge into discussions with your off-topic hosts file nonsense" - by Zontar The Mindless (9002) on Friday April 11, 2014 @09:51PM (#46731153) FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
You said my "APK Hosts File Engine" is a virus/malware http://slashdot.org/comments.p... but it's EASILY PROVABLE it's not, right there in that link too.
Now PROVE YOUR FALSE ACCUSATION above: Show me a quote OR POST of me posting off topic on hosts where they did NOT apply... go for it!
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You avoided backing up your accusation where YOU said I say you are Barbara, not Barbie = TomHudson (same person http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... , & sockpuppeteer like you) -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
Funny you can't back up your "bluster" there either, lol...
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Why, Lastly?
You're crackers! See here multiple personality disorder http://slashdot.org/comments.p... + manic depression http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
APK
P.S.=> So, THIS quote below is my policy on sockpuppeteers like you Zontar = TrollingForHostsFiles (your sockpuppetry):
"The only way to a achieve peace, is thru the ELIMINATION of those who would perpetuate war (sockpuppet masters like YOU, troll -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ). THIS IS MY PROGRAMMING -> http://start64.com/index.php?o... & soon, I will be UNSTOPPABLE..." - Ultron 6 FROM -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Which quite obviously, I am, since none of you DOLTISH TROLLS are able to validly technically disprove my points on hosts enumerated in the link to my program above of how hosts give users of them more speed, security, reliability, & anonymity... period!
(Trolls like YOU that use sockpuppets http://slashdot.org/comments.p... (your sockpuppet "alterego" TrollingForHostsFiles) & TomHudson - Barbara, not Barbie too http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... before you)
... apk
"You barge into discussions with your off-topic hosts file nonsense" - by Zontar The Mindless (9002) on Friday April 11, 2014 @09:51PM (#46731153) FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
You said my "APK Hosts File Engine" is a virus/malware http://slashdot.org/comments.p... but it's EASILY PROVABLE it's not, right there in that link too.
Now PROVE YOUR FALSE ACCUSATION above: Show me a quote OR POST of me posting off topic on hosts where they did NOT apply... go for it!
---
You avoided backing up your accusation where YOU said I say you are Barbara, not Barbie = TomHudson (same person http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... , & sockpuppeteer like you) -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
Funny you can't back up your "bluster" there either, lol...
---
Why, Lastly?
You're crackers! See here multiple personality disorder http://slashdot.org/comments.p... + manic depression http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
APK
P.S.=> So, THIS quote below is my policy on sockpuppeteers like you Zontar = TrollingForHostsFiles (your sockpuppetry):
"The only way to a achieve peace, is thru the ELIMINATION of those who would perpetuate war (sockpuppet masters like YOU, troll -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ). THIS IS MY PROGRAMMING -> http://start64.com/index.php?o... & soon, I will be UNSTOPPABLE..." - Ultron 6 FROM -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Which quite obviously, I am, since none of you DOLTISH TROLLS are able to validly technically disprove my points on hosts enumerated in the link to my program above of how hosts give users of them more speed, security, reliability, & anonymity... period!
(Trolls like YOU that use sockpuppets http://slashdot.org/comments.p... (your sockpuppet "alterego" TrollingForHostsFiles) & TomHudson - Barbara, not Barbie too http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... before you)
... apk