By Sachin Sharma, Sr. Product Marketing Manager, End-User Computing
I’m still shocked with the number of PCs that continue to run Windows XP as their primary operating system. We all know Microsoft end of support for Windows XP took effect a few months ago, in April 2014. Yet according to netmarketshare.com, more than 25% of PCs are still running Windows XP. Twenty-five percent! If you are still running Windows XP in your environment, either you’re paying a good amount for extended Microsoft support, or running a high risk for security vulnerabilities with continued use of XP. Hackers are already reverse engineering methods to expose unprotected XP machines. For example, security flaws for Internet Explorer on Windows XP have already been exposed. So if you’re running Windows XP in your environment, it’s time to take control and migrate to Windows 7. And the easiest way to help you is with VMware Mirage.
VMware Mirage provides many benefits when addressing the challenges of migrating operating systems. First, Mirage takes a layered migration approach. This means customers can migrate from an old operating system to a new one quickly across distributed environments. IT chooses which files get migrated across in dynamic layers. This is all done with continuous disaster recovery in mind. If something bad happens during the migration, simply roll the device back to a snapshot that was taken before the migration even started. Because of this, one of our customers in the European insurance industry was able to reduce help desk costs by 30% during their migration project.
After the migration is complete, IT can reap the additional benefits of Mirage. IT can continue to use Mirage for disaster recovery and image management. IT can repair PCs, restore lost/stolen laptops, and give end-users self-service file and directory level restore options. Another key benefit is that during the migration process, end-users stay productive because the downtime is minimal with Mirage – 30-60 minutes on average.
And now, for a limited time, you can take advantage of these benefits with a special promotion we have in place. You can now save 20% on subscription licenses by using VMware Mirage to migrate from Windows XP to Windows 7, or from Windows 7 to Windows 8.1! If my environment was still on Windows XP, or if I was looking to migrate to the latest Windows 8.1 operating system, I’d definitely take advantage of this promotion.
For more information, please visit our promotions page or read more about VMware Mirage.
