Windows XP end of life has been a topic of discussion in IT circles for quite some time. This discussion always heats up on the first of each month as the various data tracking companies release their stats on browser and OS usage share.
Here we are on August 1st, 2013 checking in with NetApplications to see how much Windows XP dropped this month, on its way to extinction when Microsoft ends support next April. When we last looked at Windows XP share on this blog, we used the May 1st data which had XP at 38.31%. As of July 1st, it had dropped to 37.17%. Though that drop was only a bit more than 1% in 2 months, we can surely expect the pace of decline to increase as we get closer to April 2014. We’re now only 8 months away, so let’s do a little wagering. Who wants to bet that it went down 5% this month? 3%? And for the conservative bettors, 1%?
And the winner is …
… everyone loses (and we mean everyone!). XP usage went UP this month, from 37.17% to 37.19%. How is the IT industry going to drive XP usage to zero by April 2014 if it’s heading in the wrong direction in July 2013? There’s clearly a lot of work ahead for enterprise IT. In fact, XP share has only come down 2.3% since January, for an average of 0.3%/month. That certainly does not inspire confidence in achieving the goal.
Each enterprise still running Windows XP has its own reasons for holding off on a migration. Some are planning to go to Windows 8 and are waiting for the 8.1 release. Others are trying to line up the budget and resources for a Windows 7 migration. And just about all are at least partially blocked by application compatibility – particularly line of business web applications that won’t run properly on IE8 or later. This latter challenge is where Browsium can be a big help. Let us know if you’re blocked and we’ll work with you on a plan to use Browsium Ion to remediate your web applications and unblock your migration. The sooner we get started, the better chance you have of avoiding the purchase of an expensive custom support agreement from Microsoft next April. The clock is ticking.
