Where we worked they changed out the computers every two or three years. If the software makers don’t want to update their software they deserve to go out of business anyway, just like the buggywhip manufacturers who didn’t move into the modern world. Four years for a PC is plenty of usage anyway. It is functionally obsolete.
I’m *not* referring to software companies.
Instead, I’m talking about what ordinary firms write internally for their own management. Healthsouth. AT&T. Ford. U.S. Steel. Wal-Mart. Embassy Suites. Boeing. Cracker Barrel. DuPont. McDonald’s. Acme Brick. AIG.
Every company in America writes unique software programs that are run inside those firms. That’s called “proprietary software.”
It’ll manage their operations, investments, communications. It will analyze their competition and track their customers.
You don’t buy that software inside Circuit City; you write it yourself.
There’s a Trillion Dollars or more of proprietary business software in use by U.S. companies.
Well, National Cement isn’t going to go rewrite their mixing and shipping software just because MicroSoft changed in Vista what worked in XP. See: “backwards compatibility.”
Nor are those companies going to upgrade hardware just because some wet-behind-the-ears kid thinks that it’s outdated.
Corporate America isn’t going to pay new money for old functionality. That means that new software has to do something new, rather than just rewriting the old software to give the same functionality on a new OS.