To upgrade or not to upgrade
a question clients, customers and even my co-workers ask me on a very frequent basis.
In its February issue, Inc. magazine examines the pros and cons of what it refers to as “upgrade madness:”
“The price tag for licensing a new version of a software product isn’t the only cost to consider. A midsize company upgrading its financial or customer relationship management software might have to slog through a year’s worth of information technology headaches to get the job done.”
“Among the hassles: the bugs that invariably appear; the loss of all the customization performed on the old version; and the incompatibilities between the software and other types of software you might be running.”
Good points, but I think the KEY point is to upgrade on a case by case basis. Not everyone needs to upgrade every time a new release comes out.
However, you NEVER want to drop maintenance because of the downside. It’s really going to cost you time and money down the road if you ever do upgrade to new features. And in the case of Microsoft’s business applications, a common code base is coming sometime in the next 2-3 years. Users will want the option of looking at the new code base when it makes sense.