(Toby Wolpe @ zdnet) There are the XP diehards, and the Windows 7 and 8 migrators. But in a world facing up to the end of Windows XP support, one UK organization belongs to another significant group — those breaking with Microsoft as their principal OS provider.
Microsoft's end of routine security patching and software updates on 8 April helped push the London borough of Barking and Dagenham to a decision it might otherwise not have taken over the fate of its 3,500 Windows XP desktops and 800 laptops.
"They were beginning to creak but they would have gone on for a while. It's fair to say if XP wasn't going out of life, we probably wouldn't be doing this now," Barking and Dagenham general manager IT Sheyne Lucock said.
Around one-eighth of corporate Windows XP users are moving away from Microsoft , according to recent Tech Pro Research.
Lucock said it had become clear that the local authority was locked into a regular Windows operating system refresh cycle that it could no longer afford.
"If we just replaced all the Windows desktops with newer versions running a newer version of Windows, four years later we would have to do the same again and so on," he said.
"So there was an inclination to try and do something different — especially as we know that with all the budget challenges that local government is going to be faced with, we're going to have to halve the cost of our ICT service over the next five years."
Barking and Dagenham outsourced its IT in December 2010 to Elevate East London, which is a joint-venture between the council and services firm Agilisys