blog Those of us who’ve followed events in Australia’s banking IT sector for the past five years or more will remember the torturous upgrade path that the National Australia Bank went through in order to upgrade its 28,000-odd desktops from Windows NT (yes, Windows NT, I wrote that correctly) to Windows XP in the years leading up to 2008. Given the hundreds of applications its desktop machines have to run, it was a lengthy journey for the bank. Well, in 2009 the bank started investigating the next move, to Windows 7, and now that 2013 is almost here, according to iTNews (we recommend you click through to the full article), the bank is actually deploying some Windows 7 machines:

“The National Australia Bank is replacing a number of end-of-life desktops with Windows 7 laptops as it moves to support more flexible working practices.”

Change is slow in Australia’s banking sector. But for the sake of those at NAB that are forced to work with Windows XP every day, we hope the bank expedites the Windows 7 deployment. Windows XP was fine for its time, but if you’re a power user running more than a couple of applications at a time, or if you have applications which aren’t perfectly stable, it is an absolute bitch in 2012, and we’d personally hate to be stuck using it all day at this stage.

Image credit: Microsoft

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1. Mike Brown
   Posted 30/11/2012 at 6:12 pm | Permalink | Reply

   > the sake of those at NAB that are forced to work
   > with Windows XP every day…

   I doubt whether they give much of a toss one way or the other, Renai, as long as it works okay for them. Or do you have evidence to the contrary?

   • seven_tech
     Posted 01/12/2012 at 6:19 pm | Permalink | Reply

     He has evidence…

     It’s called “use Windows XP for more than 3 programs” (most banks have 4 – 5 running on clients at a time) and you’ll see his evidence…

     :D

     • seven_tech
       Posted 01/12/2012 at 6:20 pm | Permalink | Reply

       Correction, that should’ve been “use more than 3 networking based programs”

       XP is USELESS for multiple heavy networking clients.

   • James
     Posted 03/12/2012 at 11:18 am | Permalink | Reply

     Might not be that users have any issues with XP (though it mey be the case). The upgrade could be because WinXP security support ends in April 2014 (16 months time).

     Software redeployments can take upwards of a year in big organisations, and I’d reckon most companies would want to keep up their support from MS, especially banks.

2. Poster
   Posted 02/12/2012 at 1:06 am | Permalink | Reply

   I don’t know I work for a bank we use Windows XP, am a power user, run many applications at the same time some of which are unstable and don’t have much of a problem to be honest. It’s not an absolute bitch in 2012 at all.

3. SCRASH
   Posted 14/12/2012 at 11:32 am | Permalink | Reply

   An interesting announcement but they still have a $1.5bn core infrastructure deployment that is not going well. An indication of problems, apart from cost blowout, is when the Head of the Programme gets an “out” mid stream to work in another business line.
   You will never get successful delivery if those accountable and who see the writing on the wall, are allowed to slip away quietly….
   The Windows 7 announcement is window dressing to avoid the real issue.

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