[sims] SIMS Technical Roadmap

[localzuk]

Microsoft might still be providing security updates for XP for some time, but they aren't releasing software that works on XP. Examples such as IE9, and I'm going to guess that future releases of .Net won't work on XP either.

 

Add in the fact that as customers we're expecting them to support 3 OS's, 3 office suites and 3 different server OS's, and it is obvious that that is quite an undertaking.

[PiqueABoo]

Add in the fact that as customers we're expecting them to support 3 OS's, 3 office suites and 3 different server OS's, and it is obvious that that is quite an undertaking.

 

I was using Windows VMs at the end of the 90's because we had to support 95, 98, NT3.51, NT 4 and about to be released Me and 2K with a wide variety of web browsers and versions. That is what real development is like, or at least what real development is like with no one being paid truckloads of maintenance money in a position to cause some significant pain by jumping the MS support expiry gun.

 

In any case you missed a key point: Why can it run on XP longer than 2003? What's the massive difference that make's them count as 2 OS's as opposed to 1.1 at worst?

 

Ans: None worth mentioning in this context. I don't know what the agenda is here but I haven't seen a single comment from anyone with a credible tech reason, so I'm falling back to suspecting there's something else going on. Perhaps it is some strategy to effectively force some schools into the cloud or something?

 

PS:

 

we're expecting them to support 3 OS's, 3 office suites and 3 different server OS's

 

I wrote/support extremely serious code on 5 Windows OS+platform combinations all by myself - and this stuff needs to care about some of the differences.

Edited June 14, 2011 by PiqueABoo

[AyatollahPies]

I was just about to congratulate capita on actually making a brave decision on Sims but then I saw they backed down

 

Can't believe people will be using XP in 18 months time to be honest! Windows 8 should be out by that time!!

 

People have to remember that longer support for these old technologies means less new features and testing on the current platforms

 

It is the LEA Sims Support teams that have requested the postponement. They have a good idea of how out of date the schools within their authorities are.