Windows XP support costs to double

sincity · February 19, 2015

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Enterprises that want to continue using Windows XP face a hike in the price of support as Microsoft continues to try to persuade companies to leave it behind in favour of a newer model.

A licensing expert, who spoke to Computerworld on the condition of anonymity, explained that the per-PC price for Microsoft's custom support agreements (CSAs) for XP will rocket to $400 (around £259, or AU$511) for any enterprise looking to carry on with support.

Companies that sign CSAs benefit from critical security updates for the OS that was officially retired on April 8, 2014 and the agreements are devised on a firm-by-firm basis. It's also a stipulation that any company signing up must take out the top-tier support plan known as Premier Support.

XP remains on 15 percent of PCs

The original Windows XP CSAs cost $200 (around £129, or AU$255) per PC with a $250,000 (around £161,899, or AU$319,715) cap and the same expert reports firms that have slashed the OS usage in half in the first year will continue to enjoy support at the same price.

Many organisations, including the UK government, still rely on Windows XP and figures from IT security company Secunia showed that around 15.17 percent of the world's computers are still running Windows XP.

Via: Computerworld