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80 Percent of IT Decision Makers Say Outdated Tech is Holding Them Back (betanews.com)
A study by analysts Vanson Bourne for self service automation specialist SnapLogic looks at the data priorities and investment plans of IT decision makers, along with what's holding them back from maximizing value. From a report: Among the findings are that 80 percent of those surveyed report that outdated technology holds their organization back from taking advantage of new data-driven opportunities. Also that trust and quality issues slow progress, with only 29 percent of respondents having complete trust in the quality of their organization's data. Nearly three-quarters (74 percent) say they face unprecedented volumes of data but struggle to generate useful insights from it, estimating that they use only about half (51 percent) of the data they collect or generate. What's more, respondents estimate that less than half (48 percent) of all business decisions are based on data.
I've been in IT for 40 years, and yes, you're right. Its always been this way, it always will be. But there is a business decision reasoning for a lot of it. Let me break it down for you into three basic categories.
1) Bleeding edge. Hopping on every new tech that rolls around hoping to catch the top of the first wave. Most of which will die and go away and barely be remembered. The business case for this is agility. The down side is very rarely works out as intended or even tangentially. (Think BlockChain)
2) Mainstream. Slightly behind Bleeding edge by a couple years. Most of the rough edges have been worn off, and there is enough data to show the tech is actually useful. The business case for this approach is waiting for others to show it will pan out decreases risk. The downside is you might be behind competitors who are in Group 1. (Think: Cloud)
3) Trailing Edge. Finally on the bandwagon, long after it is established. The business case for this is long term stability and minimal risk. The downside is obvious as competitors have long since adopted tech and has made effective use of it, and the risk of obsolescence as you adopt tech. (Wireless G)
Unless you're in Group 1, everything you look at will seem like "outdated tech" to some degree.
Current tech is only related to tech from 20-30 years ago if you view tech as waves of use. If you don't understand what you're looking at, its because you're focusing on what the tech is doing, not its life-cycle. Not saying that is bad, it is just a different perspective (which may work fine). The point being, if you're in the industry long enough, you see technological life-cycles everywhere.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
If the decision makers are feeling that way, they should make the decision to replace the outdated tech.
Blah blah blah old tech bad blah blah blah new tech good blah blah blah. Oh look, a company that sells a SAAS service says that old tech is bad and new tech is good!
This is such a pathetic self-serving refrain and I am SO sick of hearing it.
"Old" tech does *not* hold you back. Generally speaking, it never has, and it never will.
What *will* hold you back? Poor management will hold you back. Badly implemented technology that leaves you with a big pile of technical debt will hold you back. Hiring people based on buzzword bingo will hold you back.
I know companies who, for example, went all in on Hadoop because it was "new" and "cool" and "let you slice and dice massive amounts of data data with ease". (Their entire dataset was less than 1TB) Less than a year later, and the entire effort has been discarded because the effort required just to maintain the thing was overwhelming compared to the value they were actually getting out of it. They were able to accomplish what they wanted with much less effort using a single simple instance of SQL Server.
The current culture of treating with disdain anything older than 6 months has to be one of the most profoundly idiotic notions to have ever come out of the computer industry. We have become fans of reinventing the wheel over and over, without so much as once thinking about whether there is even a benefit to the effort.
It's one thing to introduce a new technology for realistic, practical reasons, such as you simply don't have the manpower to implement said thing with what you already have. But do NOT just spew junk self-serving surveys that blanket says "you gotta throw out what you got and get this new shiny" because that's a lie and you know it.