Datacom is ready to help Australian and New Zealand businesses upgrade to Windows 11 after signing an agreement with Microsoft to be a Strategic Refresh Initiative (SRI) partner for the local market.
The agreement sees Datacom become one of only 21 partners globally and one of only a few SRI partners in the Southern Hemisphere.
Earlier this year Microsoft confirmed an end of support date for Windows 10, in October 2025, after which it will no longer provide security updates or technical support for the older operating system.
“In Australia and New Zealand alone, there are millions of enterprise devices in active use that can’t be upgraded to Windows 11. The focus for our team is helping businesses and government agencies make the shift to Windows 11 ahead of that end of support date, without disruption to their day-to-day operations and with a real opportunity to benefit from the features and capability offered by the new OS,” says Datacom Acting Managing Director – Australia, Mike Fuller.
Datacom was selected as a key Microsoft SRI partner for Australia and New Zealand because of its decades-long track record as a technology partner to private sector and government organisations across the ANZ market and its experience with large-scale migrations and device renewals for a wide range of customers.
“We want to help businesses migrate to Windows 11 well ahead of time. Organisations face a lot of competing priorities for resource and budgets, and it would be easy to put this on the agenda for ‘next year’ but we’re encouraging businesses to start the process now so they have time to make considered decisions, identify any hardware upgrades they need to support the new OS, and create a realistic timelines for procurement and implementation. Our team can help with that entire process,” says Fuller.
Datacom also has a dedicated Intelligent Devices practice with a team that can go in and assess an organisation’s fleet and make data-based recommendations on the software and hardware that offer the best fit for the business and provide support around circularity requirements.
The benefits of the new OS include advanced security features, better performance driven by specialised hardware such as Neural Processing Units (NPUs) that optimise AI tasks, improved collaboration, and enhanced productivity with Copilot+ PCs coming with built-in AI tools to streamline tasks and find information quickly.
“With every organisation across ANZ being challenged to boost productivity, no one wants to lose valuable time or data because their software is no longer supported. But also, no one wants to miss out on the productivity gains offered by some of the new AI tools, which are baked into the latest PCs. What Datacom is offering is a hassle-free opportunity to modernise and level up your capabilities – not just avoid falling behind, but to really get ahead of the game. Now is the time,” says Chris Bright, Device Partner Sales Lead for Microsoft ANZ.
Fuller notes that organisations that do not upgrade to Windows 11 before the end of support date could face security, governance and compliance issues.
“Organisations will also find there are issues around sourcing the right PCs and hardware if they leave it too late.”
Some PCs that are currently in use will not be able to migrate to Windows 11, and businesses will also need to decide whether to adopt AI-ready PCs that can fully support AI functions and applications.
Datacom has secured a range of devices for companies needing to address compatibility issues or looking for high performance hardware to support the full functionality of Windows 11.
"We are delighted to be working with our device partners, Dell, HP and Lenovo, as well as our silicon partners, Intel, AMD and Qualcomm, to deliver the best experiences for our customers as they make this shift to the future with us," Fuller says.
There are three options for organisations looking to make the move to Windows 11:
1) Upgrade their current in-situ PCs if they are compatible with Windows 11.
2) Purchase new PCs with Windows 11 preinstalled, which may be a good option for the two-thirds of Kiwi and Australian organisations* using AI.
3) Advance to the highest performance with new Copilot+ PCs, which come with powerful new AI capabilities built-in.
For organisations looking to upgrade hardware as part of the Windows 11 migration, Datacom will work with teams to implement more sustainable IT asset management, by ensuring asset visibility, getting provisioning right and managing devices across their lifecycle to reduce waste.