Some common sense and investigation to prevent no options
It is understandable that one of the most practical and critical considerations in upgrading from Windows 2003 based solutions - to where? - is determined by horizontal and most times vertical or industry specific aplications that are either not available on Windows 2012 64bit or other operating System (OS).
There should be no sympathy however for those Windows 2003 users who did not understand clearly some time ago that the OS is 32bit only, rife for hacker intrusions with weak security mechanisms and restricts them completely to Microsoft Windows ecosystem only.
Most, if not all should have more thououghly researched alternative but equal quality and value applications (they do exist in many if not most cases!) that are OS "platform agnostic", so that the viability of switching to a GNU/linux version, for example, would not require significant hardware systems upgrade, and inter-operating with the entire Microsoft and Windows ecosystem is left in place.
Virtualization of Windows 32bit software under Linux KVM, Xen or free! VShpere -”included” in CentOS 64bit business configurations serves just as efficiently as native windows 32Bit.
The costs of upgrading under this scenario is generally a fraction - as great as 1/4 of total costs, including support services, of staying with costly Microsoft Windows lock-in.
Hopefully many of these Microsoft bling users will learn lessons of sensible modern day technology use, especially in business - "vendor lock-in is a catastrophic dead-end", particularly to a technology base that has proven inferior to most of the Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) world class solutions today that provide multiple services and support providers of same or better quality and with greater expertise than dominant behemoths of yester-year.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
