Wave Systems Corp. (fka WAVXQ)

[Genz2]

Microsoft to offer paid Windows 7 Extended Security Updates

https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-to-offer-paid-windows-7-extended-security-updates/

Microsoft is stepping up its Windows 7 migration campaign with a paid security update option, Desktop App Assure service and more

With the Windows 7 end-of-support clock slowly winding down to January 14, 2020, Microsoft is announcing it will offer, for a fee, continuing security updates for the product through January 2023. This isn't the first time Microsoft has done this for a version of Windows, but it may be the first time it has been so public about its plans to do so.

Windows 7 still has a large share of the overall Windows market, especially among business customers. Moving off older versions of Windows is a slow process, even with advance planning, for companies with multiple thousands of Windows desktop machines.

The paid Windows 7 Extended Security Updates (ESUs) will be sold on a per-device basis, with the price increasing each year. These ESUs will be available to any Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Enterprise users with volume-licensing agreements, and those with Windows Software Assurance and/or Windows 10 Enterprise or Education subscriptions will get a discount. Office 365 ProPlus will continue to work on devices with Windows 7 Extended Security Updates through January 2023.

There are a number of key differences between the old Custom Support Agreements, which enabled enterprise customers to continue receiving security updates for a version of Windows that Microsoft was no longer supporting and these ESUs, said Jared Spataro, corporate vice president of Microsoft 365.

Before, Microsoft ran this program through its consulting practice, meaning the extended updates were available only to the largest customers with deep pockets -- and active Premier Support Agreements (in the case of Windows XP, at least). In the past, customers had to show Microsoft their plans for migrating off the no-longer-supported version of Windows. They needed to provide quarterly deployment milestones and a project completion date, in addition to paying multiple millions of dollars for extended patch coverage.

This time around, the ESU program is being run out of Microsoft's Volume Licensing Unit and Core Windows Engineering "is producing these updates like a product," Spataro explained.
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It could be looking better to go with Wave VSC 2.0 (and Wave products) by extending the windows 7 computer's life (now until 2023) rather than purchasing a new computer with Windows 10. It seems like a good selling point for Wave.