I also cant imagine any win 10 software not working on 11. It's not that different under the hood. You've also had plenty of time to test with your vendors. And yes, legacy niche software blah blah, been there done that, but win 10 -> 11 isn't like XP -> vista. It's like win 10 to 10.5.
Terrible idea on a number of levels. Best of luck to anyone who tries it.
It's SMB's that are stuck with MS products...
If you think about it, most of us just tolerate Microsoft products. They're often not amazing to use (Teams, Sharepoint, etc), but we put up with them because they're mostly sufficient and/or you just already know how to deal with the warts. That's not a glowing review of MS stuff.
GSuite (or whatever they call it these days) is popular with many smaller companies and startups because they don't need traditional locally-installed office apps.
Let's consider a 1000 person org with 5 offices.
Here's their stack:
1 (or 2) DC's at each site
Active directory with 30 OU's and 100 security groups
A datacenter
A dozen LAN file shares with spaghetti permissions
1000 workstations (with paid licenses)
1000 email accounts (with paid licenses)
25 Sharepoint sites
100 Teams
20 Shared mailboxes
30 Distribution groups
100 GPO's defining server and workstation behavior/logon scripts/etc
AAD controlling user licensing, SSO, auth, dynamic groups, one way sync to local AD
7+ years of M365 and server backups (prob in the 100TB+ range)
40 TB of active data across the org
15 Hardware servers
50 Windows server VMs
20 Windows 10/11 VMs
15 Different industry specific softwares that REQUIRE Windows
Switches/routers/firewalls/VPNs using LDAP to auth
Dozens of automations using email/sharepoint/PowerApps/Flow/ToDo
And 40 years of inertia.
Tell the CTO/CIO that you think they should move to Linux and Gsuite and find open source programs to replace literally everything they do. Tell them they need to retrain their entire IT staff. They also need to redo every single workflow and SOP they have. You'll never be taken seriously again if you don't immediately start laughing and say "Just kidding, that would be insane!".
That's not even a "big" business. I don't mean to be rude but you have no idea what you're talking about.
You've rattled off a list of features - mostly related to mailboxes - that do not require Microsoft software to accomplish.
Alas, to some people, every problem appears like a Microsoft solution.
The Microsoft world runs the vast majority of businesses with more than 20-50 people. MS world is tiny... You know what's tiny? The dev/startup world. MS is overwhelmingly dominant. Not even close.
Your 12 person startup? Yeah, who cares, Linux/Mac all the way. Roll your own everything. Have a NAS that everyone has permissions to, sure, whatever. Backups? Copy it to another NAS every other week, ok. 1000 people who have been using Windows their entire life, half of which are over 50? Managing dozens of levels of permissions? Decades worth of backups?
Go try managing fleets of computers, permissions, file shares, etc for users that require... Windows software. M365 and the MS platform is the shit.
I've used Linux since the 90s. It's my daily driver at home. I was an anti M$ leet haxor. Then I joined the mature business world and saw what MS provides to businesses. The idea of gutting the entire infra "to save money from the bad M$" is greenhorn shit. I know because that was me 20 years ago. You can't just roll your own whatever cobbling together multiple 3rd party stuff and then somehow find people to support it for years to come. It is going to break and it's going to cost money.
This site loves to talk about tech debt. I can't tell you how many systems I've had to migrate from some lone wolf admin that loves writing custom scripts glueing together multiple applications and processes, building a tower of shit which no one knows how it worked after he left so he could have job security. It's very common.
MS admins are a dime a dozen. Easy to find. Reliably experienced. There's a ton of value in that alone.
You will never save money migrating a large org that's already on MS away from it. Completely rediculous.
And there we have it. Some people drink so much Microsoft Kool-Aide and cannot possibly fathom ever using anything else but Microsoft software. Every possible problem looks like a Microsoft solution. If the solution isn't obvious, call the Microsoft Rep and find one!
Then the predictable "what are you going to do, roll your own?!" remark... failing to realize there's more than just one SaaS company in the world.
How do you wager all the big businesses around the world accomplish all of these things you mentioned? What about all the big businesses in Russia, China, India and more? Hint - they're not all using Microsoft products and Azure...
Do you believe Microsoft is the only SaaS offering inboxes, storage, automation and more? Do you believe nothing else can use open protocols such as LDAP?
Microsoft's moat is deep, but it's not necessary. Most people eventually figure this out for themselves.
I would prefer they use Linux and OSS but they don't. The inertia and energy required to get anything to change is immense. Many are still working on digitalizing processes though COVID has provided a bit of a push there.
They are for the most part on Windows with the MS Suite. There are some exceptions but in >90% of offices you will find a Windows PC with the MS Office suite. Most of them have migrated to Windows 10 but I have encountered multiple Windows 7 machines in active use recently.
Most systems are desktop PC's with "Mobiles Arbeiten" still being a scarce resource in some agencies. (Constraints on laptops etc.).
They chug along for 5-8 and sometimes longer if there's no requirement to upgrade. I wouldn't expect a laptop/ Tablet to have the same durability because it has consumable components like a battery.
There's also complexity in such a one-off setup that makes hiring for admin people harder, places strong constraints on new systems and would enforce a strong dependence on Google and their cloud. While having a NAS or SharePoint is not fancy, it works and keeps pii local and not shared with your vendor.
You might also have to look at integrating existing software (systems) into such an environment. This is likely not easy given that some systems are purpose built for government agencies environments.
Running a system, especially portable or critical without fTPM is not wise, more so due to Bitlocker security enhancements with TPM available.
1) https://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-has-literally-extracted-... 2) https://duckduckgo.com/?q=1000kg+in+lb 3) https://images.apple.com/environment/pdf/Apple_Environmental...
The more obnoxious thing is they're not even dividing by the precise divider, as seen on the DDG link in my original reply.
The MS support ends in 2025. The whole point is to getting support beyond this point.
> Guarantee that's going to void your support contract with MS if you have one (or worse).
And, so what? If you are running a lot of Win10 systems you will not or can not upgrade, then which support contract are you breaking?
But they may then not want to service server/AAD/AD issues "well your win 10 clients are no longer supported, the behavior between these systems is then also not supported, we can't help. Closing ticket."
They'll be salty about it for sure.
If you're looking to pay for 3rd Party Win10 updates, you might not be running AD in Azure either. Local AD is still a thing, and it should still support several versions of joined workstations.
e.g. you've got a problem with MS Office, on an OS that would be supported under an extended service agreement, but you're getting it 'patched' from some unofficial source instead.
I work for a company with 20,000 employees and I can assure you, when we report bugs to vendors we have support contracts with, they get acknowledged then disappear into the same black hole as bug reports from home users.