Ask Slashdot: Why Won't Companies Upgrade Old Software?

An anonymous reader writes "IE6. Several governments and big companies I know use software dependent on IE6. They won't upgrade, citing the expensive cost. Do you know what's more expensive than upgrading? Downgrading to the old system they had before they upgraded! You see, before computers, companies used to have room full of people manually calculating and processing stuff. It wasn't until the computer came that they could fire all those people and save a ton of money on their collective salaries. Now, my question is: what happened to that money they saved? Even a small portion of the money saved over the years could be used to upgrade ancient systems to modern standards. However, big organizations keep citing million-dollar upgrade costs as why they won't do it. Aren't they also losing money by working with inefficient, outdated systems?"

Comments

Yes,

[hedwards]

But,OTOH, let's put it off until next quarter and let them worry about it.

Don't complain about IE6

[DaveAtFraud]

It's all a matter of perspective: If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It: Ancient Computers in Use Today. Be glad they're running something written since the advent of the PC.

BTW, I'm an old Unix hacker who has moved on to Linux but the command line still rules.

Cheers,
Dave