Avnet Embedded has warned OEMs that they must be ready to seize on the commercial opportunities that the recent withdrawal of Windows XP support presents – or watch their competitors get there before them.
While security issues and business model disruption have followed XP’s demise, Nick Donaldson (pictured), Director Software at Avnet Embedded EMEA reckons there are new revenue opportunities for OEMs, based on migration to embedded software – some variants of which are built on the same kernel as XP and preserve its familiar features.
What may catch OEMs attention is Donaldson’s contention that these variants can also mean up to 40% cheaper licenses than XP, enabling OEMs to increase their profitability whilst still passing on savings to their end-users.
He adds that there will be greater support longevity than XP – up to April 2019 for some versions, specialist functionality for specific vertical market end-users (e.g. retail), rapid, low-cost deployment – no development costs for writing new drivers and devising workarounds for application incompatibilities and new business opportunities in previously hardware-only accounts and with prospects from other channels.
“The withdrawal of XP is ancient history,” contends Donaldson. “Now OEMs need to regroup and focus on how they not only replace existing revenues but also grow them. Migrating to embedded software is one such option – it can replicate all XP’s strengths, across all devices and platforms, 40% cheaper than previously, and with guaranteed support for the next five years.”
The XP expertise that OEMs already have can be transferred to these embedded environments far more easily than any other, transforming the migration market into a bigger, more lucrative, more rapidly accessible source of revenue.
Donaldson continues: “OEMs can now profitably go after new migration business as well as easily deliver critical migration services to their existing customer base. This turns the disruption of XP withdrawal into an opportunity-rich play on many different fronts.”
Donaldson’s comments are in an opinion paper that can be downloaded at www.tinyurl.com/XPMustPay
The paper also touches on the issues surrounding migration from XP to Windows 7 and 8, and the huge financial implications for OEMs of choosing to run with extended, paid-for XP support, rather than migrating to alternatives.
Author
Mick Elliott
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