Microsoft has scored a major contract as the company continues to encourage enterprise adoption of the Windows 10 platform.
The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is providing Microsoft’s Windows 10 enterprise ambitions a big boost, moving 4 million seats to the platform within a year.
For Microsoft this means winning a huge contract in the enterprise space, a market area that is traditionally slow to adopt new operating system builds.
As one of the largest enterprise organizations in the United States, the DoD is embarking on an aggressive upgrade timeline that it describes as “unprecedented”.
The enterprise sector is traditionally hard to crack when rolling out a new operating system, with businesses and governmental organizations typically wary of large-scale upgrades. The sheer work involved in migrating a new OS to hundreds and even thousands of machines means companies typically wait years to upgrade.
That is evidenced by the 12 year reign aging Windows XP enjoyed in enterprise, with many companies sticking with the platform until Windows 8 landed. Microsoft has been working hard to make sure enterprise partners are more willing to adopt Windows 10 early, making the migrating process easier.
The Department of Defense getting on board with Windows 10 is huge for Microsoft, and the company’s corporate vice president of Windows and Devices Marketing, Yusuf Mehdi, reflected the size of the contract:
“From laptops to desktops to mobile devices, including Surface devices, the DoD is targeting its Windows 10 upgrade for completion in a year, an unprecedented move for a customer with the size and complexity of the DoD.”
The DoD started its migration process last November, when the Windows 10 platform passed government scrutiny and was certified for meeting security and safety standards. The Department has also adopted Microsoft’s Surface tablets, putting them on the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Unified Capabilities Approved Products List.