The ZDNet blog Between the Lines had a great post yesterday about businesses clinging overwhelmingly to Internet Explorer... and not just IE, but the aged and clunky version 6. The reason corporate IT departments resist upgrades, according to the post:
There were several comments from IT people that echoed this sentiment strongly.
I wrote about my feelings on this five months ago, and I feel just as strongly today. In my opinion, there is something culturally sclerotic about an organization that is so resistant to change. Increasingly, the ability to process and understand current information streams is becoming a competitive necessity.
The current crop, and future generations, of web applications enable the effective organization, analysis, and interpretation of information at an accelerated rate. If your organization uses these apps well, it stands to reason that your company will have a leg up on the competition.
Much of the complaints about browser upgrades and switches come down to the following whines:
Being compared to 1980s state-of-the-art Serbo-Croatian engineering is a wake up call for sluggish business in difficult economic times.
Companies are worried about custom apps that may fail on new browsers and security and compliance. In addition, companies limit the ability to upgrade. Seventy percent of companies restrict browser choice and Web content. Forrester notes that “IT control trumps technology populism.”
There were several comments from IT people that echoed this sentiment strongly.
I wrote about my feelings on this five months ago, and I feel just as strongly today. In my opinion, there is something culturally sclerotic about an organization that is so resistant to change. Increasingly, the ability to process and understand current information streams is becoming a competitive necessity.
The current crop, and future generations, of web applications enable the effective organization, analysis, and interpretation of information at an accelerated rate. If your organization uses these apps well, it stands to reason that your company will have a leg up on the competition.
Much of the complaints about browser upgrades and switches come down to the following whines:
- The employees at my business will encounter too much difficulty in adapting to the interface changes.
- The vendors who develop the web apps we use haven't updated their product to handle a browser later than IE 6.
- Their human resources department has a poor recruiting process that doesn't demand a better grade of potential employee, one that is better suited to adaptation.
- The IT department is awful about messaging product roll outs.
- Their information technology selection process is defective, adopting product vendors whose improvement cycle is glacially slow. Think about it, IE 7 went live in October 2006, which is over two and a half years go.
The problem: Information workers live in browsers all day. And companies are giving them the equivalent of a Yugo.
Being compared to 1980s state-of-the-art Serbo-Croatian engineering is a wake up call for sluggish business in difficult economic times.
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