14 DAY TRIAL // The Slovak government is paying millions of Euro to Microsoft in order to use the company’s latest software, but local authorities are still running Windows XP on more than 76 percent of their computers.
According to data provided by DSL.sk, 76.6 percent of Slovak government computers use Windows XP, even though it’s an 11-year old operating system. But the biggest problem is that Slovakia actually pays Microsoft a lot of money to purchase software licenses for its newest products.
Microsoft is constantly urging users to migrate from Windows XP to a newer operating system, either Windows 7 or Windows 8, explaining that an 11-year old software isn’t going to protect their data much longer.
Furthermore, the company will stop offering support for Windows XP in April 2014, so this popular operating system has slowly turned into a ticking software bomb that needs to be replaced as soon as possible.
“We recommend that customers running computers with Windows XP take action and update or upgrade their PCs before the end-of-support date. If Windows XP is still being run in your environment and you feel that migration will not be complete by April 8, 2014, or you haven't begun migration yet, Microsoft is eager to help,” Microsoft said back in October.
The Slovak government, however, doesn’t seem to be so interested in upgrading to newer Microsoft software. While so many computers are still running Windows XP, Windows 8 is currently deployed on just a single workstation.
In addition, 50.2 percent of their computers still use Microsoft Office 2003, even though the Redmond-based technology titan will soon release Office 2013.
The Slovak government is paying approximately €200 ($258) per computer in order to make sure it runs the latest Microsoft software, so such a report is very likely to stir up criticism aimed at local officials.