From Greg's Head

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.

I read the top half of the article and then came back to it a couple of days later, only to see that we came to the same conclusion (great minds think alike).

Software updates should be done on a case by case basis. It really depends on the capability and the user. A cutting edge software geek thrives on all of the new bells and whistles, and can handle the changes, while an old school hack could care less and could probably even do without the software (in many cases).

However, I think a company should continue to promote and train, or outsource training on software to increase the interest and demand for utilizing the upgrades that puts the whole company on a competitive footing and increasing internal dynamics and discussion. Put a few hurdles in place to avoid the "me too" syndrome.

I don't think there is anything wrong with a company culture that embraces change and incorporates software as part of its values. It can augment its differentiated positioning strategy in the eyes of its clients, competitors and staff.

I personally don't do a lot of software upgrades, but I like it when I do, and I really like to see company leadership and staff using the latest software. That helps me to determine my need.

Sincerely,

Andy Valadez
The Marketing Evangelist
www.marketingdynamics.org

Thanks for your comments Andy. I hope others will stop by and share their views as well.