German govt failed to upgrade to Windows 10, now has to pay over ₹6 crore: Report

Even though Microsoft has ended Windows 7 support, a lot of users still haven't updated to the latest version for one reason or another. For enterprise users, the task is more daunting considering a larger number of PCs and different kinds of devices running older versions of Windows. For example, the government of Germany. But an error like this could prove to be rather expensive.

The German government failed to upgrade to Windows 10 on time and is now facing of a bill of $887,000 ( ₹6.3 crore approximately) for failing to upgrade to Windows 10.

The Verge (via German paper Handelsblatt) reports that the German government is looking to upgrade up to 33,000 devices that are still running on Windows 7. The upgrade, however, involves paying a big fee to Microsoft for extended security. The government had reportedly begun upgrading its devices to Windows 10 but couldn't upgrade all of them. The report says about 20,000 in Berlin government offices are still on Windows 7.

In case you didn't know, Microsoft is offering a year of extended security protection to Windows 7 to enterprise users. It is worth noting that Windows 7 still runs on PCs and a range of non-PC devices such as ATMs.

"Financial institutions will be required to upgrade the embedded OS on ATMs to either Windows 10 or purchase Windows 7 ESU (Extended Security Updates) for the next 3 years. They can do that by getting in touch with the OEMs of these ATM hardware. Upgrading the embedded OS may require hardware-level changes as well, as some of these ATMs are still running on old Intel motherboards," said Microsoft.

The Verge in its report added that extended updates for Windows 7 Enterprise costs roughly $25 ( ₹1,800 approximately) per device. The fee increases two-fold to $50 per device in 2021 and is now $100 per device for 2020.

Verge pointed out that the price is different for Windows 7 Pro users who have to pay a minimum of $200 in 2022. It is worth noting that Microsoft has different fees for companies depending upon their scale and the number of PCs used.