Pentagon plans a huge, swift upgrade to Windows 10

The Department of Defense is embarking on a program to update millions of its computers to Windows 10, an unusually quick move for one of Microsoft’s massive government customers.

Microsoft highlighted the department’s plans in a pair of blogposts, but the news emerged in a little-noticed November memo by Terry Halvorsen, the Pentagon’s chief information officer.

Halvorsen said the department must rapidly transition to Windows 10 to improve cybersecurity and to streamline and lower the costs of its information technology footprint. He set a goal of completing the migrations by January 2017. It’s unclear what the project will cost.

About 4 million devices are slated for updates as part of the program.

The Seattle Times

This story was originally published February 17, 2016 at 1:56 PM with the headline "Pentagon plans a huge, swift upgrade to Windows 10."