As Support For Windows XP Ends, A Majority Of PCs Still Run The Aging OS

Retirement

As the clock ticks down to the end of Windows XP support, a majority of business machines are still running the aging operating system, suggests a new Softchoice-led study.

Sixty-two percent of desktops and laptops continue to operate on Windows XP or older operating systems, according to aggregate data gathered from over 620,000 PC’s of hundreds of Softchoice clients. Just 38 percent of surveyed machines were running a newer OS, including Windows 7 and to a lesser extent, Vista.

Although this is an improvement from last year (a previous Softchoice study showed that as of August 2011, 71% of PC’s still ran XP), the new numbers indicate two thirds of North American businesses are running an OS that will soon be obsolete, as Microsoft plans to cease support for XP as of April 2014.

In November, Softchoice will kick off its latest Discovery Series, an informative seminar hosted by our team of Microsoft experts where we’ll explore the business challenges of upgrading – and the real value of Windows 8.

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3 Steps For A Successful Lync Voice Deployment

Microsoft Lync is gaining traction with organizations as more and more CIOs and IT Directors take advantage of its collaborative tools and tight integration with Microsoft Office’s productivity suite.  They’re seeing Lync have a direct impact on unifying communications, increasing efficiencies and decreasing costs.

That said, Lync is a strong contender in the Unified Communications arena for reasons other than its seamless integration with Microsoft Office.

Many IT Execs are looking for ways to deliver more flexible work/life balance solutions to staff to enable greater efficiencies and flexibility. Others are looking for cost savings and productivity gains while still ensuring excellent customer service and response times.

At a time when IT departments are focusing on delivering tangible business solutions to business users, it’s important to ensure every project has a strong alignment to the strategic goals of the organization, to assure success for both IT and the business.

Lync Voice can be the answer to all these needs, replacing traditional PBX and other IP solutions, with a complete solution that provides voice, IM and Presence – great sharing tools to enable collaboration and productivity – anytime, anywhere. Check out our recent blog post describing some of the considerations you should take into account when considering Lync for IM, Presence & Collaboration.

To learn more about Microsoft Lync and its great collaborative features, register for our upcoming webinar hosted by our team of Microsoft Professionals who will discuss:

  • Best practices and recommendations learned from our extensive experience designing and managing hundreds of unified communication implementations
  • Answers to common questions around Lync, IM and Presence
  • The how-to’s of integrating Lync with legacy PBXs
  • The Basics of SIP Trunking –a primer for the future
The webinar will be followed by a Q&A so you will have an opportunity to discuss your unique challenges with our Microsoft experts. Register Now!

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Top 5 Announcements from 2012 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference

Opening with the bang of Cirque du Soleil drums and the flash of fire, the Microsoft World Partner Conference 2012 launched today in our Softchoice hometown of Toronto, Canada. As expected, Microsoft made a big splash with some significant announcements about the company’s future and what’s in store for customers moving forward.

Demonstrating this year’s tagline of “A new era.Together,” the major soundbites from today’s keynote reflected Microsoft’s commitment to increased collaboration, enhanced consumer experience and expanded communication.

The Softchoice team was on hand to tweet the announcements to our Softchoice Microsoft Navigator audience as they rolled in. To keep an eye on all that’s happening at the 2012 WPC this week, follow us @scmsnavigator.

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System Center 2012, ActiveSync, And The BYOD Revolution

Systems Center 2012, ActiveSync and BYOD

A great deal has changed since 2008 and the onset of the client computing “revolution”. The Consumerization of IT appears to be here to stay and the options and connectedness of our environment continue to increase exponentially. Back in 2008, Facebook (only) had 63 million uses – it’s projected they’ll hit 1 billion worldwide by August. In 2008, Twitter was only a year and a half old. In 2012 there are more than 140 million active users generating over 340 millions tweets daily. In four years, we’ve seen a veritable avalanche of changes and choices that have completely shifted the landscape of IT considerations and opportunities in the enterprise.

It was back in Q1 of 2008 when Apple announced it had licensed Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) from Microsoft for its iOS products (specifically the iPhone). Read this short post for a quick walk down memory lane. Since then, iOS has completely changed the view of what it means to have, manage, use, interact with, secure, provide, decline, buy, sell, and consume mobile information. Although iOS has led the charge, there is still more innovation going on by all major manufacturers, and Microsoft is doing their part to help their customers get ready for BYOD.

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Softchoice’s SQL 2012 Field Guide Now Available!

Last month Softchoice surveyed our broad base of Microsoft customers to find out more about their interest and readiness to begin a migration to SQL 2012. As a thank you for their participation, we offered them an advance peek at our Softchoice exclusive SQL 2012 Licensing Field Guide. Now available for wide release, we’re posting the Field Guide as a free download to all of our Softchoice followers.

Our ebook includes insight on:

  • Industry trends: What’s affecting our IT environments?
  • Reasons to migrate to SQL 2012: Key benefits for your business
  • What’s new with SQL 2012 Licensing Models & Pricing Changes
  • How Softchoice can help you evaluate your adoption strategy with our SQL TechCheck

Download your complimentary field guide today for key insights into how to best prepare for a migration to SQL 2012.

System Center 12 – Part Two: The Orchestrator and You

 

In our last discussion about System Center 12, we tried to help you understand what the System Center family of products does and how it can be beneficial for your business. In this second part we want to take a look at System Center 12’s major centerpiece, which is now available in beta and is called System Center Orchestrator. [Read more...]