Problems with software upgrades in a Windows world

Larry Borsato — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 10:13:32 -0700

Millions are drooling with anticipation, over some big news in the computing world: Windows 7 is coming out next year!

Well, not everyone is drooling. A lot of people are still disappointed with Microsoft's last operating system upgrade. Vista has been available for more than a year, but is still plagued by problems, ranging from incompatible device drivers to poor performance. Despite Redmond's heavy-duty marketing efforts, the new OS hasn't given many people a compelling reason to buy a new Vista PC, or upgrade from XP. My Dell and Sony laptops are safe from Vista for the time being.

I'm holding off on other software upgrades, too. Office 2007 came out last year, but I'm still running Office 2003. It does everything I need -- why should I get the new version? Unless you are buying a new PC, you probably aren't rushing to plunk down hundreds of dollars on a new office suite, either.

It's not just a lack of compelling features that are keeping people from buying new software. It's also a fear of change. Customers are forced to abandon old processes and relearn new software as it changes substantially from version to version -- for instance, Office 2007 users were presented with a distracting "ribbon" interface for commonly used commands, instead of the tried-and-true drop-down menus at the top of an open window. Consumers buying new software also have to worry about unknown bugs and performance issues.

People aren't helped by confusing feature descriptions and pricing. I recently helped a friend purchase a laptop for her fledgling interior decoration company. We limited our shopping to large retail stores -- Best Buy, Future Shop (a Canadian division of Best Buy), and Staples. Choices of models varied wildly from chain to chain. It was virtually impossible to compare specifications and performance, and we learned that these stores add new PCs into their inventories each quarter.

New hardware and software products are released every day, and consumers are constantly urged to buy them. But how often do you really need to upgrade?

That depends a lot upon the needs of the purchasers. Just because companies are advised to replace their computers just once every three years doesn't mean that you have to, unless you feel the need to be on the bleeding edge. Most consumers will only upgrade their computers when they are no longer capable of doing what they need to do, or when they are required to have some new software. For most people, Vista and Office 2007 have not been "must-have" products. XP and Office 2003 work just fine, thank you very much. Microsoft -- despite earlier promises to retire XP -- has been forced to extend support for the seven-year-old operating system again and again.

Besides a lack of compelling features, there's another good reason not to upgrade: Many software upgrades add to software bloat. While hardware follows the Moore's Law curve and gets exponentially faster from year to year, increasingly over-featured software eats up all of the added performance and more, meaning that an upgrade may actually decrease performance.

The laptop I ended up recommending for my friend has a 2 GHz Intel Core Duo processor. This is the same chip that's in my speedy Macbook, yet on her machine Vista is a dog -- painfully, embarrassingly slow. She is finding that she prefers using her three-year-old laptop over the new one. And she's not the only one who has seen Vista issues. Microsoft has been hit by a class-action lawsuit over its promises of Vista compatibility with hardware. Some of the documents unearthed in the case show that senior Microsoft employees were even sounding the alarm about new "Vista-capable" computers choking on the operating system.

We've all been conditioned to believe that software becomes obsolete; that we must move to the new and improved version to get our hands on the glitzy new features. Yet for most of us, the WordPerfect of 20 years ago would probably be able to meet many of today's word-processing needs. We are often seduced by a shiny new interface, but don't realize significant gains in productivity.

Meanwhile, the industry reaps huge profits from upgrades, as consumers struggle to realize benefits from new systems. Year after year, we get new hardware, new operating systems, and software upgrades. We have to relearn new commands, processes, and functions. Yet with all of the new technology, is it really any easier to get things done?

Perhaps Windows 7 will make things better. Maybe it will be an upgrade that I really need. But I am not getting my hopes up. The proof, as the old saying goes, will be in the pudding.

Larry Borsato has been a software developer, marketer, consultant, public speaker, and entrepreneur, among other things. For more of his unpredictable yet entertaining thoughts, visit his blog at larryborsato.com.

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