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The Biggest Windows 10 Shop? Microsoft Partner Accenture (zdnet.com)

Posted by msmash on from the windows-farm dept.

Mary Zo Foley, reporting for ZDNet: Microsoft partner Accenture, a global consulting company, is on track to become "the largest consumer of Windows 10," say the two companies. By 2018, Accenture will have migrated all of its 400,000 employees to Windows 10 in a move that will have taken two years. (Accenture has 400,000 employees?! Microsoft has about 114,000.) Currently, Accenture has migrated somewhere between 250,000 and close to 300,000 users to Windows 10, according to information shared on June 28. In a video accompanying the latest statistics on the Microsoft Windows blog site, it appears that Accenture also currently has 450,000 Office 365 mailboxes, 16,000 SharePoint sites and 99,500 smartphones and tablets enrolled in mobile-device management (which I take to be Microsoft's Enterprise Mobility + Security suite products).

40 comments

  1. US DoD Active Directories are larger by AF_Cheddar_Head · · Score: 2

    Pretty the AF and Army both have more than 400,00 desktops and both are in the process of migrating to Windows 10

    1. Re:US DoD Active Directories are larger by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      And the Navy has even more than that.

    2. Re: US DoD Active Directories are larger by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      And by the time they are done windows 20 will be released. Our military is still running XP all over the place. Any large company can out perform any size of government. A company with 200000 desktops can replace those faster than a government with 10000 desktops. London police department is another prime example of cluelessness in government

    3. Re:US DoD Active Directories are larger by jon3k · · Score: 1

      Interestingly enough, the US DoD is only 450,000 and I'm willing to bet the vast majority aren't even close to being on Windows 10. I think if you added in all the third party contractors it would be much larger, but those would be separate companies.

    4. Re:US DoD Active Directories are larger by AF_Cheddar_Head · · Score: 1

      Uh, that site says 450,000 overseas. Try this site http://www.globalsecurity.org/... , 1.3M Active Duty, 750,000 civilians plus Guard and Reserve. Any way you slice it more than 400,000 desktops per service, most in the process of migrating to Win10.

    5. Re:US DoD Active Directories are larger by AF_Cheddar_Head · · Score: 1

      Reply to self, those numbers do not include the number of contractors that have desktops and accounts on one of the Active Duty forests.

    6. Re: US DoD Active Directories are larger by AF_Cheddar_Head · · Score: 1

      XP has been banned on most DoD networks, the only exceptions are Internet-isolated mission systems or medical equipment that does not currently support newer versions of Windows.

      Large companies have the same if not more difficulties replacing obsolete desktops and servers as the government. A case study of Rolls-Royce's difficulties would be very instructive.

    7. Re:US DoD Active Directories are larger by jon3k · · Score: 1

      URL doesn't work, but fair enough. When will more than 400,000 be on Windows 10? The only source I can find says they won't even start until late 2016. So this may just be a question of timing.

    8. Re:US DoD Active Directories are larger by jon3k · · Score: 1

      I think it may just be a matter of terminology. It's kind of unfair to combine every branch of the military and every contractor compared to a single company. Or not, but I guess it just matters on how you want to define a single "consumer". The article mentions "company" before using the "consumer" description. Of course timing is also important, I still can't find any numbers from the DoD that show more than that currently in place or even a projected timeline.

    9. Re: US DoD Active Directories are larger by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Parts of different Air Force commands are migrating now, mixture of upgrades and new machines. Scheduled for the entire AF to finish by the end of the year. So yeah pretty much timing. Still the DoD AD structures are huge.

      Cheddarhead

  2. Suckers! by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Suckers!

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    1. Re:Suckers! by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 1

      As much grief as Microsoft gets for it's Windows 10 shenanigans (and rightly so, IMO), for any corporation who relies on Windows already, it seems like upgrading to Windows 10 isn't such a bad idea. As far as I can see, we're pretty much past the point of major internal structural changes with Windows. The last really big one was Windows Vista, which changed the driver model, rewrote major systems (like the audio stack), etc. As a developer, I'd imagine those are the sorts of things that cause compatibility issues. In-version upgrades can sometimes have this effect, of course, but it's certainly more rare.

      Since Windows 10 is supposed to be the last version of Windows (or most accurately, it's the last branded version of Windows), this skirts around a lot of the old OS update pain, since MS has done a lot to improve the OS's in-place update capabilities over the last couple of years. And of course, corporations have a LOT more control over upgrade scheduling, telemetry exfiltration, and so on.

      Really, it's consumers that tend to get the raw end of Windows 10. Corporations are obviously Microsoft's preferred customers.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    2. Re:Suckers! by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 1

      Also, that's Mary Jo Foley, msmash, unless she has an evil twin I don't know about.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    3. Re:Suckers! by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      What should they be using. If it is a Linux distribution which one. I doubt you can make any choice on a system without starting a flame war.

      If you are a Windows shop, then you should stay up to date. The 1990's mantra of always staying a version behind, isn't no longer valid, because of advancements in attackers. Where older systems are just always at risk. Staying current and dealing with the minor compatibility issues as they come up, is less painful then having a major security risk, causing you to clean up all the system, upgrade all the system, and fix a decade of compatibility issues in a short period of time.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    4. Re:Suckers! by Pascoea · · Score: 1

      Around 2003-ish I worked at a pretty small business, it was a combination of retail, service, and a call center. My first "IT Job". We had a small intranet built by the in-house IT guy, most everything ran on Linux servers that needed a Windows box as an authentication bridge between the Linux and Windows systems. (I don't remember all the details of the authentication scheme, I just know the clients devices were all MS, and the server goodies were Linux.) Being they scrimped on every penny, the just used a client's box to run the Windows side of the bridge. The client upgraded it from XP SP1 to SP2, without telling the IT guy. SP2 was the first version to have Windows Firewall turned on by default. It took down our intranet and the call center once the cached credentials expired on the Linux side. Good times. Good times.

    5. Re:Suckers! by F.Ultra · · Score: 1

      Distro flame wars and "systemd ate my pony" exists mostly on Slashdot only. I've worked in many 100% Linux places and none of that have ever been an issue.

    6. Re:Suckers! by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Suckers!

      Why? What alternative OS do you recommend to an IT consultancy corp which specialise in high-end solutions that typically involve insanely Windows locked-in vendors and products?

    7. Re:Suckers! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > The 1990's mantra of always staying a version behind, isn't no longer valid, because of advancements in attackers.

      Isn't it not?

      Thanks for the fucking clarity.

  3. Energy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    An analogy comes to mind; an abandoned ship, floating in the ocean with a population of rats; the rats have long since eaten everything edible that isn't a rat, and now the rats are eating each other. How long before this system runs out of energy?

    1. Re: Energy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Depends on how fast they can make babies.

    2. Re: Energy by F.Ultra · · Score: 1

      So the worlds first perpetuum mobile eh?

  4. Must require dozens of fiber links by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    just to carry all of the telemetry being collected from those computers by Microsoft

  5. heres the kicker by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    No one knows what Accenture does :-P

    yeh yeh insurance, travel blah blah blah, AI , world peace .

    1. Re:heres the kicker by HornWumpus · · Score: 2

      Black box test Accenture, study its habits.

      First data point: Based on observation: Accenture marketers must give _awesome_ head to senior executives at client companies/governments. The senior execs are putty in their hands. Excuses are accepted and the process is repeated.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  6. This is news? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Microsoft partner uses Microsoft shit? Wow, man.

  7. A Match made in H.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They deserve each other!

  8. Meta Beurocracy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    So the bureaucracy that tells bureaucracies how to be more bureaucratic uses Windows 10, Office 365, and SharePoint.

    I'll keep that in mind when I do and do not want to be bureaucratic.

  9. Accenture also the largest consumer by netsavior · · Score: 2

    Accenture is also the largest consumer of my voicemail inbox. They are always ready to offer me a 3 month contract at half wages to do god-knows-what for some customer they will charge 5x my salary to.

    1. Re:Accenture also the largest consumer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Accenture sell interns at somewhere above senior consultant rate, and pull endless political tricks to screw over their clients. The whole thing is a joke, never have anything to do with Accenture.

  10. They must be good at what they do... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    They must be good at what they do. At a previous place where I worked, the boss said that he didn't care about security issues, because he could just call Accenture and get "top tier, world class" IT professionals to remedy any problem.

    Same boss gave me a lecture on how security has no ROI.

    1. Re:They must be good at what they do... by laurencetux · · Score: 1

      Thats because security Prevents LOSS of resources.

      You want your Total Cost of 0wnership to be as high as possible so that %competitor% can't get your business

      it Would be Obvious that you want to spend a couple 1000 on this if you LO0K

    2. Re:They must be good at what they do... by mysidia · · Score: 1

      Same boss gave me a lecture on how security has no ROI.

      Yes it does; its impact is just measured differently.
      The payoff is mitigating risks of damages to the company that will be caused by various events, some of them infrequent, some of them frequent, some of them large, some of them small.
      For each risk:

      SLE (Single Loss event Cost) x annualized rate of occurrence (ARO) = ALE (Annualized Loss Expectancy)

      Security measures help mitigate by reducing the expected SLE or decreasing the ARO.

  11. you expect accuracy from ZDNet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Pretty the AF and Army both have more than 400,00 desktops and both are in the process of migrating to Windows 10

    In case you didn't notice the article source: ZDNet.

  12. How is this stat relevant? by sqorbit · · Score: 1

    So a large company, which has relied on Windows is now using the most up to date version. I'm sure there are many small companies out there that are 100% on Windows 10. 100% of a company on Windows 10 is a stat too. It also is a useless stat.

    --
    Sent from my TARDIS
  13. Where's the technology angle .. by najajomo · · Score: 2

    Where's the technology angle .. and yet another free advert on the Microsoft slashdot ..

  14. still resorting to "we are big" advertising by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So Microsoft still has to resort to this old "we installed this many Windows" or "we sold X many Windows licenses" type of ads? Are technical managers so full of shit they have to hold up these examples to sell their decisions? Are the Windows shops still full of this kind of immaturity and unskilled people? Wow.

  15. Pronunciation of Accenture by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'be often heard it promounted as "ass - enter," so it makes complete sense for them to partner with Microsoft.

    --b

    1. Re:Pronunciation of Accenture by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      They only changed it because everyone used to call them Androids.

      Anyone else remember when there were SIX big conslutting companies?

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  16. Suckers? It's more likely than you think! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > Microsoft partner Accenture, a global consulting company,

    Accenture, formerly known as Arthur Andersen, who changed their name after the Global Subprime Meltdown.

  17. Migration experience by jezwel · · Score: 1

    This will give them some good experience at migrating to Win10. If they can apply that to their consulting teams there will be lots of customers wanting them to do the same.
    Plus, being a gold partner and not on the 'latest and greatest' release does not look good.