Telecommuting... surely the time has finally come?!

"London ought to be a washout but it isn't. People stoically bend their heads into the howling winds. Water sluices everywhere, but people still make every effort to get into work, despite rather powerful obstacles - only one of them, the Tube strike - being put in their way." Melvyn Bragg, In Our Time blog, today.

About five years ago, during a winter of persistent snow and ice, I remember writing a blog post suggesting that finally the time had come when companies would get wise to telecommuting. Reliable VPN technology has been available for more than twenty years, but still the vast majority of office workers struggle in to work every day.

And this time we're having a winter of persistent storms, punctuated by flooding, some of it on the outskirts of London. Maybe telecommuting will receive a boost this time? Climate change will only make things worse over time... to prove the point, these pictures are not even from the UK - they're from recent floods in Australia and the US... but small-c conservatism is a strong force and I suppose a lot of employers simply like to see what they're paying for. Have a heart, folks! Let people work from home, at least until that home has dried out!

The end of Windows XP?

On April 8th this year, my sister will turn 40. Don't worry - she's an HR Manager. She will never read this blog, so she'll never know that I've outed her. In any case, April 8th 2014 probably has a wider significance than my sister's entry into middle age. For that is the date that Microsoft have chosen to cease supporting Windows XP.

On the face of it, this is a problem. Apparently, something like 40% of the world's Windows PCs are still running Windows XP. Various anti-virus suites, such as McAfee, have already stopped releasing updates for XP, and presumably others will follow. Over time, other software too will come in Windows 7 and Windows 8 versions, and not much else.

What are the dangers?

Presumably, somewhere in Russia, and in numerous other places, teams of rabid virus authors are even now making their plans to exploit the fact that 40% of the world's PCs will be that bit easier to infect after April 8th.

So what to do?

Most companies will do nothing at all. PCs are supplied with the current operating system pre-installed. PCs supplied during a given period came with Windows XP, just as today they all come with Windows 8. An organisation will generally keep using a PC until it becomes useless. Perhaps there will be Windows XP PCs which will become useless after April 8th simply because they will no longer be supported by Microsoft, in which case the industry will receive a much-needed boost. But other Windows XP PCs will carry on regardless.

There are enterprise-based solutions which involve installing software which will automatically update Windows on all the organisation's PCs. Goto Software can help with this. But otherwise, just allocate 10% extra to your 2014-2015 kit replacement budget and you should be fine.