Inside Small Business » 2008

Software Treadmill

Inside Small Business | July 29th, 2008

David Grenda, Founder, Grenda Computer Consulting

I recently found a company that was considering upgrading a software package they had been using for some years. The software package was industry specific and had been in the marketplace for some time. They bought it a long time ago, started using it, and never thought about the future.

When they inquired about upgrading, they discovered that their version 3.0 of the product had now grown up to version 8.0 and bore little resemblance to the original. It almost wasn’t an upgrade at all but an entirely new purchase. In fact, it was because the vendor no longer supported version 3.0 and had no upgrade path available to jump to version 8.0

Welcome to the software treadmill. The process by which software packages grow and improve (in most cases) and the customer base needs to be brought along in the process. It’s kind of like being forced to buy a new car on the car maker’s schedule.

When you evaluate bringing a software package in to your organization, you need to pay close attention to more than just what the software will do. What is the upgrade path? What does tech support cost? How often do they force upgrades? What additional workflow changes on your part will be necessary to handle upgrades on their part? (Stay tuned for Microsoft’s ribbon or Fluent User Interface…yes foo-ee).

Have a plan in place to evaluate and keep up with software upgrades on a schedule. You’ll have to upgrade at some point, better to do it on your schedule and not the vendor’s.

If you would like further guidance in considering the options, feel free to drop me an email at david@grenda.com.

Outlook Password Recovery- Kernel PST Password recovery software tool effectively restores the passwords and gets back your important mails.