Decision details

In January 2020 all Microsoft support for Windows 7, MS Office 2010, Microsoft Exchange Email and Windows 2008 server ends. This means all upgrades and Security patches for new vulnerabilities will no longer be issued to protect these key council systems. This would result in the council would lose its central government PSN accreditation to process anything from central Government agencies including revenues and benefits, no access for Public Health and other services to the NHS spine and no access to CPIS for Children’s social care etc. We therefore need to implement Windows 10/Office 2016 across our IGel, Pc, Laptop and Home working portal infrastructure. As our current portfolio is now 5 to 7 years old our desktop and server hardware also needs replacing to implement Windows 10 before the deadline. Our Microsoft License Enterprise Agreement also expires in June 2019 exposing us to an annual £450,000 charge compared to the existing £214,000 annual revenue charge therefore we need to buy out of the current agreement before the expiration date to mitigate this doubling of charges. Discussions at central government level have gone nowhere with this issue in terms of the revenue challenge so we have no other option to choose the buy out scheme and look to re-enter the Microsoft EA route or Google solutions before October 2025 when support ends for MS Office 2016

To fully approve capital amounting to £1,471,000 from the provisional capital programme item IT Asset to commence the replacement of windows 7 and Office 2010 with Windows 10 and Office 2016 before their end of support dates of 14th January 2020 when security and bug fixes will no longer be available. Also to buyout of the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement to reduce our exposure to a 110% increase in pricing in just 3 years

Option 1 - Cloud hosting through Microsoft Partner rejected as came in at substantially higher than our current annual revenue and projected capital costs and did not cover all systems and requirements
Option 2 - The Microsoft License Enterprise Agreement will increase annual revenue costs by £236,000 per year meaning the council paying over £450,000 per year. A buyout option is available which takes the total cost of ownership down over the term of the agreement avoiding additional costs of £120k per annum
Option 3 - Continue to sweat assets and pay extended out of warranty support. We have practiced this successfully for a number of years but our laptop fleet is 7 years old in many cases and desktops 5 years old with many unable to take the upgrade to Windows 10. Backend servers supporting our Virtual desktop infrastructure are also over 7 years old and cannot be upgraded for the additional processor and memory requirements of moving to Windows 10