In layman's terms planned obsolescence is when a company deliberately makes their product obsolete either by issuing a newer incompatible version or by stopping the service/support of their product prior to the end of its actual useful life. Microsoft does this constantly with their products, the most prevalent being their Microsoft office software suite.
Every few years Microsoft comes out with a new version of Microsoft office and the new version isn't necessarily any different than the last version. For example, if you compare their 2003 and 2007 versions of Excel there is no great leap in functionality. The main difference is the layout, which they claim was for ease of use; however there are still some things that I have not been able to find in the 2007 version. That's okay though, because they have now put out Microsoft Office 2010 so I can start relearning Microsoft Office, again.
In my opinion the new versions are published primarily due to a desire for more profit, not due to any great technological breakthrough or public demand for change. Microsoft knows that eventually, everyone will have to upgrade because of their market dominance. They also know that once they stop supporting a particular version, IT departments in companies all over will follow suit and no longer provide support for that version and anyone left with the old version will be forced to upgrade.
Provided below is a link to an interesting comparison between Excel 2003 and Excel 2007, you will notice that there are some people for whom they recommend not upgrading due to a decrease in certain functionalities between the versions.
http://www.add-ins.com/Excel%202003%20versus%202007.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment