Don’t ignore the
ticking timeboard
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 Wear region from
January. 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
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 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 R’s
• 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 up to
CORNERSTONE BUSINESS SOLUTIONS LTD
MAP HOUSE, 3 GEORGE STEPHENSON COURT, OFF WESTLAND WAY,
PRESTON FARM, STOCKTON-ON-TEES, TS18 3TG
January 2020. Don’t leave it till then to
take action. This is one of those times
where 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 told everyone about this
problem in the area, months before it happens
and why we are mentioning it again as the
time is coming around very quickly.
If you would like advice then please get in
touch.
PHONE 0845 223 2400
EMAIL [email protected]
WEB
cornerstonebs.co.uk