Computerworld - ORLANDO -- There are a number of IT trends users will see in coming years, but one that's expected to rise to the top will be the need to migrate off Windows XP and Office 2003 as the end of support nears.
In its annual list of the top 10 trends in infrastructure and operations, IT research firm Gartner detailed at its Symposium/ITExpo conference here the shrinking of data centers as users shift more work to cloud services, for one (see the full list below), but the standout issue for many will be the pending end-of-support dates for the Microsoft products.
Support for Window XP and Office 2003 ends in April 2014.
Although desktop operating system migration ranked No. 7 on the list, Gartner analyst David Cappuccio indicated that it would prove to be a more critical issue to some people.
"You may find yourself in a situation where these migrations become the dominant projects in your organizations over the next few months," Cappuccio said. "It's just a fact of life that we can only milk a cow for so long," he said, of the still widely used operating system.
Matt Holmes, systems manager for Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kan., said the Windows migration is "definitely" an issue.
"Over the summer we just had a round of 'firefighting' where we had a bunch of Windows XP SP2 machines that had to get upgraded to Service Pack 3 because of end-of-life support," said Holmes, who was at the conference. "I think it kind of snuck up on the desktop support folks."
The college plans to migrate to Windows 7, he said.
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