Aycliffe Today Business Aycliffe Today Business Issue 41 | Page 26

BEWARE THE TICKING MICROSOFT TIME BOMB Protect your business by planning now Revealed: The ticking software time bomb that could disrupt half of all Teesside businesses in January 2020. Chris Petty, MD of Teesside’s Cornerstone Business Solutions, tells us the bad news first... Y our business, like most others, relies on Microsoft software every day. It’s the software you use the most – for email, documents, to run your company’s server and, of course, to run the PCs themselves. But there’s a problem. And very few businesses know about it. Microsoft has announced that a load of its much-used software will reach “end of life” in January 2020. What does that mean? Will it just stop working? No, it’ll carry on working. But it won’t be supported by Microsoft. Which means if the software breaks or is compromised, there’ll be no-one in America fixing it. It’ll stay broken. As the owner of a popular and trusted Managed Service Provider (MSP) for hundreds of local businesses, I’ve seen this happen before. End-of-life software like this becomes a keen target for hackers. They will find loopholes and ways to use the software to get into your computer - or spread malware. Because there’s no-one to stop them. End-of-life software creates three major problems for your business: • Problem one: When it breaks, it will stay broken • Problem two: You’ll become a keen target for clever hackers • Problem three: Your business will no longer be GDPR compliant The answer lies in the Rs. • Review: Organise an audit review of all of your software • Replace: Some of the software, such as the Office suite, can be replaced quickly and easily. But much of it takes time… you’d be surprised how long a new server takes to get set up. We support hundreds of businesses, and CORNERSTONE BUSINESS SOLUTIONS LTD MAP HOUSE, 3 GEORGE STEPHENSON COURT, OFF WESTLAND WAY, PRESTON FARM, STOCKTON-ON-TEES, TS18 3TG are now scheduling in work right up to January 2020. Don’t leave it till then to take action. This is one of those occasions when being proactive really will save you serious amounts of stress, time and money. • Relax: When January 2020 rolls round, I’m pretty confident the media will be full of stories about businesses and organisations that have run into major problems. “But we didn’t know!” they’ll cry. But not your business. You’ll be able to relax and enjoy business as normal. Cornerstone is not like most IT support companies. We focus our attention on people, more than we do on computers. Experience has told us people want fewer disruptions – they just want to get on with their work – which is why we’re shouting about this problem in the area, months before it happens. PHONE [phone] EMAIL [email protected] WEB cornerstonebs.co.uk