Microsoft's EOL Plans And New OS Spell Big Opportunity For Channel Partners

By Tom Blankenhorn, Director, Ingram Micro

Microsoft pulled the plug on Windows Server 2003 support in July, which means the vendor is no longer issuing updates and patches for the product. Several weeks back they started the “free upgrade” to Windows 10. From a solutions provider perspective, these moves help create a host of migration and upgrade opportunities for the channel.

If you aren’t talking to your customers about these opportunities, you should — because another Microsoft product with a massive installed base, SQL Server 2005, is fast approaching its end-of-life, too. The closing date is April 12, 2016, for those taking note.

Why Migrate?

There are plenty of reasons to advise customers to migrate out of unsupported solutions and into new platforms — the most obvious of which revolves around security risks. Without the patches and updates Microsoft issues regularly to strengthen security and boost performance, the potential for a cyberattack increases substantially. That means customer data, intellectual property, and competitive business information could end up in the hands of cybercriminals.

In addition, unsupported servers cannot pass compliance audits, so any organization still running Server 2003 — or SQL Server 2005, come April 12 — could well run afoul of data privacy and security regulations such as Sarbanes Oxley, HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), and ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library).

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