As much of the world enters the holiday season, I bumped into a blog I didn’t think I’d ever write. It concerns Windows XP (yes – you read correctly). I am taking my last trip of the year, and find myself in Denver, CO staying at a business hotel. In the business center, I found that the public PCs are running Windows XP. Not only does this open the hotel chain up to extreme potential liability in the Post-Sony hacking era (imagine if your Gmail account, accessed from its browser, was infiltrated) because the world has been put on legal notice about end of support (EOS).
So that hotel motion got me thinking. What is the implicit opportunity to Office 365 for businesses still running Windows XP on the desktop? If you think about it – the opportunity is strong. When you are considering moving the desktop operating system to “get modern,” wouldn’t it be strategically prudent to consider upgrading the front office components of Microsoft Office to the latest and greatest version? And if that decision point is on the table, wouldn’t you want to use the new-new of Office 365 instead of the FPP SKU for Office 2013 Professional? I’d assert the answer is YES!
Did you notice I haven’t even touched on the whole “back office” conversation concerning Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync? I don’t have to. The storytelling today is about a customer-facing public PC in a hotel business center. I think I can prevail before judge and jury with just the front office evidence on this one.
BTW – my pockets are a bit light this holiday season. So indeed, I think I’ll logon to the Windows XP computer at the hotel, authenticate to my business e-mail, and ask the GOP to hack me so I can reap millions. Ethical framework aside, you read it here first.
Timing is truly everything. I received the following message from WatchGuard this morning, with results from their recent global survey:
“Do you trust hotel and coffee shop guest networks? You probably shouldn’t according to a recent WatchGuard global survey.
WatchGuard Technologies surveyed hotels, restaurants and other hospitality companies across the globe and uncovered lacking security controls and protocols that invite in unnecessary risk. Two highlights include:
• 71% do not adequately restrict guest network access
• 51% do not monitor for malicious applications, malware or activities on guest networks
These (and other) statistics are disturbing given the growing sophistication of threats like DarkHotel that target business travelers.”
The full release is available here.
