IRS to pay Microsoft millions to keep supporting Windows XP

The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) didn’t migrate from Microsoft Windows XP before the April 8 end of support deadline, and will pay millions to Microsoft for extended support. Microsoft pulled the plug on its popular 13-year-old operating system, urging users to migrate to Windows 7 or 8/8.1. However, millions of PCs are still running XP and haven’t been migrated, including many business PCs.

Usually, the Internal Revenue Service is the one getting paid this time of year, but Uncle Sam will be lining someone else’s pockets this tax season because of its attachment to Windows XP. In case you hadn’t heard, support for XP officially stopped on April 8th, meaning that Microsoft will no longer provide support or security updates for the venerable OS. However, governmental computers can’t be left vulnerable, so the IRS will be paying Microsoft millions of dollars for custom support to keep their machines secure and functional. Right now, over half the agency’s PCs still run XP, despite Microsoft telling the whole world that it would stop support for the OS in 2014 six years ago. The plan is to have all IRS machines running Windows 7 by the end of the year — at which point the clock starts ticking on the transition to Windows 8. No rush, though, Microsoft has pledged to support Windows 7 through 2020. Let the governmental procrastination begin!