Indian Banks drop Microsoft Office, revert to calculators

Two Indian banks clamped down use of unlicensed Microsoft Office, leaving staff to use calculators or open-source alternative spreadsheets.

Mid-Day.com reported that Bank of India and Saraswat Bank had some licenses for Microsoft Office but not enough for all the computers the bank had allocated to staff.

Branches were instructed to uninstall Office from many computers, leaving only three computers with MS Office in each branch.

” Other than the branch manager, we have now given licensed MS tools to three departments – credit department, administration and government business. All other terminals are without MS Office, “

Many of the Office installs were old, not longer supported, versions like Office XP or Office 2003.  That raises the risk of infection and infiltration of a banks systems.  Use of those older Office releases is perhaps why the banks decided to remove the software rather than pay for additional Office licenses.