Companies Keeping Systems Longer Than Ever

Ant writes to tell us ComputerWorld is reporting that based on a study done by the Yakee Group Research company out of Boston companies are leveraging the durability and reliability of computers to extend the lifespan of desktops, laptops, and servers. From the article: "IT's life-cycle demands have raised the bar for vendors. "There's more pressure on [the vendors] to make the boxes last a longer period of time."

Comments

Investment in Software

[under_score]

Also drives this need to keep hardware around longer. A major piece of software for internal corporate IT might take several years to build, and then last a couple of decades. Suddenly it becomes important to have a fairly stable hardware environment.

Why upgrade?

[Centurix]

W2K does everything we need right now for both developers and users in the company. The only reason I can think of to upgrade would be ongoing support from Microsoft for the platform. We call them once in a blue moon, mainly due to there being so much information elsewhere for most domestic stuff, only calling them when something weird goes on with something like Exchange (which is an expensive call in itself and not related to our desktop installs). We don't need the Fisher Price interface just something that works so we don't have to fix it.

If you went to our CIO and said "We need to upgrade all our PC's to XP" and gave one reason, even if it's a good one, he'd get out the calculator and say no. It would have to be a reason like "We have to upgrade to XP otherwise the company will explode killing all executive management". Then he'd probably sign a check.

Re:Why should I upgrade?

[baldass_newbie]

First off, Editor, it's "Yankee" and not "Yakee". RTFA.

To the First Poster's point, the bigger question is whether or not Longhorn will force massive code rewrites. People got sucked into the hype with Windows 95 and 32-bit, but it killed a lot of small to midsize software builders which is the basis for a lot of anti-MicroSoft sentiment.

Will web-based applications require a rebuild? (The web being the obvious weapons of choice.) Better yet, will Longhorn try to cripple Apache? (I have a dollar that says 'yes' -- for 'security reasons', too.)

And you forgot one reason why managers will go away from WIndows 2K -- SharePoint. I have a Win2K machine, one of the last in my organization, and I can't connect to ANY of our SharePoint work. CIO doesn't care, says he won't be supporting Win2K in a few more months. Lucky me, I get one of the laptops of my friends who just got fired in the recent RIF. Yipee.