The Opportunities and Risks of Standard IT

There are plenty of advantages to be had from standard IT tools and operating systems in the area of production as well as in the lab. However, there are two sides to every coin. In addition to cyber-security standards, short life cycles also present a problem. CHEManager International spoke to Axel Oppermann, Senior Advisor, Experton Group, about Windows XP's support side. 

CHEManager International: In which sectors of process technology, and specifically where are Windows operating systems, in particular Windows XP, currently applied?

Axel Oppermann: There are still implementations of XP in almost all sectors of process technology, in smaller and midmarket businesses as well as in a number of corporations. However, small midmarket businesses are obviously facing greater challenges. This is associated with the fact that they have ignored the issue for a relatively long time.

Isolated systems specifically used for testing or measuring are creating problems. Their number is relatively small compared to the absolute figure. But, their significance is incredibly large. The challenge of migrating these systems is on the application level.

IT cycles are many times shorter than they are in process control engineering. So how should Microsoft customers deal with this discrepancy?

Axel Oppermann: IT cycles are indeed much shorter than process control engineering cycles. Intervals will get even longer in the years to come, with information technology cycles continuing to shorten even more. Identifying problems and obstacles early on - nipping them in the bud, so to speak - requires the creation of a roadmap of products and solutions for process control engineering and IT which is adapted to and integrated in the company. This roadmap will be supplemented by information about the current situation and defined objectives. Collected data need to be transferred into reliable systems and tangible models. That way, different scenarios - and defined objectives - can be addressed.

But, reality is still different: a study proves that more than 60 percent of all decision-makers in companies with more than 500 employees do not review the product roadmap of their software provider. Even more striking is the situation in deployment planning. Three-quarters of all IT decision-makers say they never validate different scenarios based on the roadmaps of their providers as part of their deployment projects. This is why businesses frequently fail to seize operational and strategic opportunities. In an integrated world - for example, the world of process control engineering and IT - this does not work.