Technologies continue to change.  Companies must change with them or can lose their competitive edge through obsolete technology.  Technology shouldn't just change for change sake, but as needs change either internally or with your customer, you should find the latest technology that can provide a solution.  However, your customer, organization, and perhaps even upper management may not understand the short term costs of moving to newer technologies.  So, what are the advantages and disadvantages of legacy verses newer technologies?

 

 

Advantages:

Disadvantages:

 

Advantages:   

Disadvantages:

So what can the transition or adoption of newer technologies impact your goals until they become more mature?

 

Legacy Technologies -> High stability - > Better understanding -> Better support -> Better productivity/efficiency -> Better quality -> Faster delivery -> Highly Satisified Customers

 

Newer Technologies (short-term) -> Low stability -> Less understanding -> Difficult to support -> Less productivity/efficiency -> Less quality -> Slower to deliver -> Challenge to satisfy customers

 

I'm not to say that you should stay on legacy technologies forever, as they do have end of life and we need to move on.  I am saying that during the transition of legacy to newer technologies there is a cost and expectation, until such technologies and the skills required to use them mature both internally and externally.

 

Most companies will go through cycles every 3 - 5 years between legacy and newer technologies, where their tools or products will transition.  Customers may also go through this transition, and companies should expect some initial impact with stability, training, and supporting the newer technologies.  You need to make sure that your company goals and revenue model accurately reflects the "costs" of these technology changes.