According to  ZDNet, the cash is being spent to run more than 33,000 government workstations that are still running Windows 7.

Windows 7 reached end of support (EoS) on January 14, and Vole has stopped providing free security updates and bug fixes. Last year, Redmond announced a paid programme for governments and enterprise partners.

The programme, named the are Windows 7 Extended Security Updates (ESU), would provide paid access to Windows 7 security updates until January 10, 2023. ESU updates, for which the German government has recently signed up, cost between $25 to $200 per workstation, depending on the Windows 7 version a company is running (Enterprise or Pro) and the amount of time they'll need the updates.