German Government to Spend $877,000 on Windows 7 ESU

So, it’s been a little over a week now since Windows 7 officially entered its end-of-life. The good news is that so far the world hasn’t torn itself apart. With the lack of any further security updates, however, it is clearly providing a lot of headaches to large organizations that still utilize the operating system.

One of which apparently appears to be the German government. In a report via Handelsblatt, they are reportedly set to spend around $877,000 on Extended Security Updates (ESU) for Windows 7.

Windows 7 ESU

Now, despite Windows 7 officially being in end-of-life now, if you are willing to pay, then Microsoft is willing to continue the security updates for 3 more years. That does, however, come at increased costs. The first year ESU costs $25, the second $50 and the third $100.

While the German government is still transitioning over to Windows 10, it is believed that they still have around 20,000-30,000 systems still using Windows 7. As such, by the time the switch is complete, it is expected to have cost them nearly $1m.

What Do We Think?

News such as this was undoubtedly expected given the number of systems still using Windows 7 (roughly 25%). For Microsoft though, this is clearly great! While they do have to still pump some resources into the operating system, they’re probably making more money from it now than they did in the prior 4 combined! In fact, ending support for Windows 7 might be the most ingenious financial move in their recent history!

I can only presume though that nobody told Germany how they could make the upgrade for free!

That being said, if you are still using Windows 7 (be you an individual or a government) it really is time to start looking towards 10. Like it or not!

What do you think? Which operating system do you use? If Windows 7, are you going for ESU? If so, are you sticking with it or making the move to Windows 10? – Let us know in the comments!