The US Department of Defense (DoD) has agreed to upgrade more than four million of its devices to Windows 10 by January next year, with the platform’s biometric authentication cited as an important factor.
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Terry Halvorsen, chief information officer of the department, puts emphasis on cybersecurity and there is a big chance that he will deploying Microsoft Windows 10 Enterprise Edition, which is better equipped, security-wise, than the standard edition.
The DoD’s move to Windows 10 began in November after an internal memo directed all Combatant Commands, Services Agencies and Field Activities to rapidly deploy Windows 10. It’s unclear yet how much the migration will cost the Defense Department, which spends around $44 billion every year on IT and cybersecurity.
It’s likely that the bulk of those 4 million devices are PCs but Microsoft noted that the upgrade includes laptops, desktops and mobile devices, including Surface tablets.
Today, Windows 10’s enterprise credentials have received a substantial boost as the US Department of Defense (DoD) has signed up for a major deployment of Microsoft’s latest OS.
Windows 10 will continue to be available as a free upgrade for Windows 7 and 8.1 users until July 29, but it’s not yet clear what’s going to happen after this deadline is reached. The goal is to have all of the DoD’s computers that are now running older versions of Windows upgraded to Microsoft’s new OS within a year. Over 200 million devices have been upgraded to the new OS within six months, however only 22 million of these upgrades have been performed in enterprise/educational environments. Secure Boot, Windows Defender and Enterprise Data Protection are other notable features that make Windows 10 the go-to choice for stable and easy to maintain security.
In tandem with this, the government has given the Surface 3, Surface Pro 3, Surface Pro 4, and Surface Book all the relevant certifications to allow those systems to be included on the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Unified Capabilities (UC) Approved Products List (APL).
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Technology buyers “can look at this and say, ‘And those are the people keeping us safe, ‘” O’Donnell said. The move is fueled by the advanced security offered by Microsoft’s latest OS.
