The Dutch government struck the deal with the software giant. Dutch Minister Mr. Stef Blok (Housing and Central Government) officially announced the agreement.
It is unclear how much the Dutch government has to fork out for this “privilege”. Mr. Blok stated that the amount is part of the contract negotiations and therefore confidential.
As announced, Microsoft will stop supporting it Windows XP from Tuesday 8th of April 2014 on. This means that that there will be no more technical support of Windows XP. There also will be no more security patches for the 12-year-old operating system (OS). Anyone using XP after April 8 could be faced with viruses or other data-stealing malware.
In the Netherlands, many governmental computers still run on XP. The Dutch National Cyber Security Center already advised way back in February to migrate as soon as possible from Windows XP to a new operating system (OS).
There are also an estimated 1 million private computers in the Netherlands running on Windows XP. The amount of business users is unknown.
According to research, two in five Dutch municipalities currently use Windows XP computers.
Dutch banks have recently warned their customers NOT to use Windows XP when making transactions. The banks also modified their terms & conditions to point out that customers will themselves be liable for any fraud resulting from online banking if they do not have an updated OS.
But curious minds want to know: how come that Microsoft can keep on supporting the XP computers of the Dutch government but not those of your average Joe?!
Anyway, if you are a small or medium-sized company (SME/SMB) or a private user with one or more computers running on XP – contact ScotPlanet NOW to quickly and safely move away from XP to a new OS. Let’s keep your computer(s) and data safe!
(Image courtesy of www.ncsc.nl)
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