The Biggest Windows 10 Shop? Microsoft Partner Accenture

Mary Zo Foley, reporting for ZDNet: Microsoft partner Accenture, a global consulting company, is on track to become "the largest consumer of Windows 10," say the two companies. By 2018, Accenture will have migrated all of its 400,000 employees to Windows 10 in a move that will have taken two years. (Accenture has 400,000 employees?! Microsoft has about 114,000.) Currently, Accenture has migrated somewhere between 250,000 and close to 300,000 users to Windows 10, according to information shared on June 28. In a video accompanying the latest statistics on the Microsoft Windows blog site, it appears that Accenture also currently has 450,000 Office 365 mailboxes, 16,000 SharePoint sites and 99,500 smartphones and tablets enrolled in mobile-device management (which I take to be Microsoft's Enterprise Mobility + Security suite products).

US DoD Active Directories are larger

[AF_Cheddar_Head]

Pretty the AF and Army both have more than 400,00 desktops and both are in the process of migrating to Windows 10

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

And the Navy has even more than that.

Re: US DoD Active Directories are larger

[Anonymous Coward]

And by the time they are done windows 20 will be released. Our military is still running XP all over the place. Any large company can out perform any size of government. A company with 200000 desktops can replace those faster than a government with 10000 desktops. London police department is another prime example of cluelessness in government

Re:

[AF_Cheddar_Head]

XP has been banned on most DoD networks, the only exceptions are Internet-isolated mission systems or medical equipment that does not currently support newer versions of Windows.

Large companies have the same if not more difficulties replacing obsolete desktops and servers as the government. A case study of Rolls-Royce's difficulties would be very instructive.

Re:

[jon3k]

Interestingly enough, the US DoD is only 450,000 [defense.gov] and I'm willing to bet the vast majority aren't even close to being on Windows 10. I think if you added in all the third party contractors it would be much larger, but those would be separate companies.

Re:

[AF_Cheddar_Head]

Uh, that site says 450,000 overseas. Try this site http://www.globalsecurity.org/... [globalsecurity.org] , 1.3M Active Duty, 750,000 civilians plus Guard and Reserve. Any way you slice it more than 400,000 desktops per service, most in the process of migrating to Win10.

Re:

[AF_Cheddar_Head]

Reply to self, those numbers do not include the number of contractors that have desktops and accounts on one of the Active Duty forests.

Re:

[jon3k]

I think it may just be a matter of terminology. It's kind of unfair to combine every branch of the military and every contractor compared to a single company. Or not, but I guess it just matters on how you want to define a single "consumer". The article mentions "company" before using the "consumer" description. Of course timing is also important, I still can't find any numbers from the DoD that show more than that currently in place or even a projected timeline.

Re:

[jon3k]

URL doesn't work, but fair enough. When will more than 400,000 be on Windows 10? The only source I can find says they won't even start until late 2016 [federalnewsradio.com]. So this may just be a question of timing.

Suckers!

[Oswald McWeany]

Suckers!

Re:

[Dutch Gun]

As much grief as Microsoft gets for it's Windows 10 shenanigans (and rightly so, IMO), for any corporation who relies on Windows already, it seems like upgrading to Windows 10 isn't such a bad idea. As far as I can see, we're pretty much past the point of major internal structural changes with Windows. The last really big one was Windows Vista, which changed the driver model, rewrote major systems (like the audio stack), etc. As a developer, I'd imagine those are the sorts of things that cause compatibil

Re:

[Dutch Gun]

Also, that's Mary Jo Foley, msmash, unless she has an evil twin I don't know about.

Re:

[Pascoea]

Around 2003-ish I worked at a pretty small business, it was a combination of retail, service, and a call center. My first "IT Job". We had a small intranet built by the in-house IT guy, most everything ran on Linux servers that needed a Windows box as an authentication bridge between the Linux and Windows systems. (I don't remember all the details of the authentication scheme, I just know the clients devices were all MS, and the server goodies were Linux.) Being they scrimped on every penny, the just used

Re:

[jellomizer]

What should they be using. If it is a Linux distribution which one. I doubt you can make any choice on a system without starting a flame war.

If you are a Windows shop, then you should stay up to date. The 1990's mantra of always staying a version behind, isn't no longer valid, because of advancements in attackers. Where older systems are just always at risk. Staying current and dealing with the minor compatibility issues as they come up, is less painful then having a major security risk, causing you to

Re:

[F.Ultra]

Distro flame wars and "systemd ate my pony" exists mostly on Slashdot only. I've worked in many 100% Linux places and none of that have ever been an issue.

Re:

[thegarbz]

Suckers!

Why? What alternative OS do you recommend to an IT consultancy corp which specialise in high-end solutions that typically involve insanely Windows locked-in vendors and products?

Re:

[F.Ultra]

So the worlds first perpetuum mobile eh?

heres the kicker

[Anonymous Coward]

No one knows what Accenture does :-P

yeh yeh insurance, travel blah blah blah, AI , world peace .

Re:

[HornWumpus]

Black box test Accenture, study its habits.

First data point: Based on observation: Accenture marketers must give _awesome_ head to senior executives at client companies/governments. The senior execs are putty in their hands. Excuses are accepted and the process is repeated.

They must be good at what they do...

[Anonymous Coward]

They must be good at what they do. At a previous place where I worked, the boss said that he didn't care about security issues, because he could just call Accenture and get "top tier, world class" IT professionals to remedy any problem.

Same boss gave me a lecture on how security has no ROI.

Re:

[laurencetux]

Thats because security Prevents LOSS of resources.

You want your Total Cost of 0wnership to be as high as possible so that %competitor% can't get your business

it Would be Obvious that you want to spend a couple 1000 on this if you LO0K

Re:

[mysidia]

Same boss gave me a lecture on how security has no ROI.

Yes it does; its impact is just measured differently.
The payoff is mitigating risks of damages to the company that will be caused by various events, some of them infrequent, some of them frequent, some of them large, some of them small.
For each risk:

SLE (Single Loss event Cost) x annualized rate of occurrence (ARO) = ALE (Annualized Loss Expectancy)

Security measures help mitigate by reducing the expected SLE or decreasing the ARO.

Meta Beurocracy

[Anonymous Coward]

So the bureaucracy that tells bureaucracies how to be more bureaucratic uses Windows 10, Office 365, and SharePoint.

I'll keep that in mind when I do and do not want to be bureaucratic.

Accenture also the largest consumer

[netsavior]

Accenture is also the largest consumer of my voicemail inbox. They are always ready to offer me a 3 month contract at half wages to do god-knows-what for some customer they will charge 5x my salary to.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Accenture sell interns at somewhere above senior consultant rate, and pull endless political tricks to screw over their clients. The whole thing is a joke, never have anything to do with Accenture.

How is this stat relevant?

[sqorbit]

So a large company, which has relied on Windows is now using the most up to date version. I'm sure there are many small companies out there that are 100% on Windows 10. 100% of a company on Windows 10 is a stat too. It also is a useless stat.

Where's the technology angle ..

[najajomo]

Where's the technology angle .. and yet another free advert on the Microsoft slashdot ..

Re:

[Hognoxious]

They only changed it because everyone used to call them Androids.

Anyone else remember when there were SIX big conslutting companies?

Migration experience

[jezwel]

This will give them some good experience at migrating to Win10. If they can apply that to their consulting teams there will be lots of customers wanting them to do the same.
Plus, being a gold partner and not on the 'latest and greatest' release does not look good.