Aycliffe Today Business Aycliffe Today Business Issue 43 | Page 20

Tick, tick, tick…
Chris Petty, managing director of Cornerstone Business Solutions, on the
ticking time bomb that many businesses are ignoring at their peril…
T
his column is about crucial advice
on changes that are going to affect
every business in the region in 2020.
At Cornerstone, we have advised all of our
customers but we also know there are
many we don’t look after who still have yet
to take the appropriate action.
Your 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 too few
businesses know about it.
Microsoft has announced that much of its
most-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 repairing
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 1: When it breaks, it will stay
broken
• Problem 2: You’ll become a keen target
for clever hackers
• Problem 3: 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
are now scheduling in work into 2020.
Don’t leave it till then to take action.
CORNERSTONE BUSINESS SOLUTIONS LTD
MAP HOUSE, 3 GEORGE STEPHENSON COURT, OFF WESTLAND WAY,
PRESTON FARM, STOCKTON-ON-TEES, TS18 3TG
This is one of those times when being
proactive really will save you serious
amounts of stress, time and money.
• 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 told
everyone about this problem months before
has chance to happen and why we are
mentioning it again, as the time moves very
quickly.
If you would like advice then please get
in touch.
PHONE [phone]
EMAIL [e-mail]
WEB
cornerstonebs.co.uk