Microsoft India on Tuesday said more than 80 per cent of personal computers (PCs) in large enterprises in India have successfully moved away from Windows XP thereby reducing the risk to their operations.
“We want every PC in India to move away from Windows XP before support ends on April 8. Our customers use Windows operating system to run critical processes which help them work and in their lives,” Karan Bajwa, Managing Director, Microsoft Corporation India said.
Businesses in India have 28 days left to secure their IT environments and migrate from Windows XP to a higher version, adopting Windows 7/ Windows 8, he said.
About 16 per cent of large enterprise computers are still active on Windows XP, which poses a significant security risk to their organisations.
“This is a genuine threat to Indian businesses and it is worrying to see that many organisations in critical industries such as banking are not moving quickly enough,” he said.
According to the bi-annual Security Intelligence Report published by Microsoft last year, Windows XP installations are six times more likely to be infected by malware than Windows 8 machines.
Therefore, it is important that organisations with critical systems such as State-owned enterprises and the banking, financial insurance services migrate to modern versions of Windows operating system, he added.
PTI report :
As Microsoft ends support for Windows XP on April 8, the overall annual maintenance bill for Indian firms with PCs running on this operating system, especially banks and financial institutions, could shoot up to $192 million (about ₹1,190 crore).
According to research firm IDC, the cost of maintaining a PC that runs on Windows XP OS after April 8, could run up to $300 per PC per year, as against the present cost of $75-100.
Microsoft India GM (Windows Business) Amrish Goyal said that in order to help firms who are migrating from Windows XP, the company will provide extended support after April 8 like some level of anti-virus support for about a year.
“We will provide some support after April 8, but it will not be for underlying vulnerabilities,” he added.
"Of the 84 per cent PCs that migrated from Windows XP, about 25 per cent made the transition in the last 12-18 months," Goyal said.
“We expect that by April this 84 per cent will go up to 90 per cent,” he added.