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To Win 10 or not to Win 10? Is that really the question?

For some time now, as the goal for 2020, ATMIA has promoted migration to Windows 10. This goal, however, is not shared by everyone.

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September 24, 2019 by Bernardo Batiz-Lazo — Professor of Business History, Bangor University

For some time now, as the goal for 2020, the ATM Industry Association has promoted Windows 10 migration. This goal, however, is not shared by everyone. Triton Systems, for one, has been advertising the deployment of its own, platform-agnostic ATM operating system across some US-based credit co-operatives. 

Arguments by detractors of the Windows 10 migration include the cost of updating individual devices (some of which won't have the computing capacity and will need to be totally replaced), the cost of adjusting existing software applications, as well as concerns on the apparent lack of security features and ease of hacking Windows 10.

Looking at this challenge in its long-term context takes us back to at least 1987, the point at which manufacturers replaced proprietary micro-processors with Intel-powered microchips, thus making OS/2 the standard for the industry. By some estimates, up to 98% of all ATMs in operation ran on OS/2 in the mid-1990s. 

Due to lack of other options, the ATM industry then migrated and standardized to Windows XP. But Microsoft's policy to end issuing updates and patches for Windows XP in 2014 placed ATMs as one of the devices — if not the very device — most affected by the end of general support to XP.

As noted above, ATMIA's response to the XP fiasco was to promote the adoption of Windows 10 in 2020 — the proposed date to cease its extended support for Windows 7. However, by one estimate, 60% of the ATMs surveyed in the summer of 2015 still operated in XP, with the transition still continuing in 2019 as other estimated that at least a third of all ATMs in operation still ran Windows XP.

The heterogeneity of operating systems coexisting within the ATM stock at any one time has to do with the age of the machines across the different members of the global ATM network. As a result, you do not have thousands of universal terminals and neither can you plan for the average age or capability in the network because the reality is a jigsaw of different capabilities within the global network.

At the same time, many banks and IADs have solutions that are tied to the different models in their network. This, as they try to make the most of from vendors maintaining features that are unique to their make and model. But this ultimately increases the lack of interoperability. 

Meanwhile attempts to break away from Windows have had limited success. Such is the case of machines running Linux broadly limited to Brazil and India. But there is an appeal to stop the never-ending cycle of innovation in operating systems. Planned obsolesce is great for firms setting standards or manufacturing devices, but it results in increasing the cost of maintaining infrastructure. 
 
 

About Bernardo Batiz-Lazo

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