Upgrading Applications - The Customer's view

[abhijit]

I am trying to think from the customer's point of view. We keep on submitting proposals for upgradation of software.

• *From oracle7.3 to oracle 9i.
  *from vb 6 to vb .net,
  *From apache tomcat to j-boss.

this is like a game of tetris that never ends. the blocks keep on piling up. i am trying to think from the customer's point of view, both the pros and cons of upgrading.

Please let me know your views.

[abhijit]

Customer point of view [Positive] - Maintenance becomes cheaper in the long run. Its tough to find cheap programmers who are skilled in old technologies. So future maintenance becomes easy if the application is upgraded to a later technology.

[Negative] - More cost. If my app is working fine, why should I spend on it to upgrade? Is it really worth the investment? Does upgrading add any value, if the application that was upgraded doesn't contain any new features?

[DarkX_Greece]

Software updates are for the customers!

When a new update is released then, as you can see, everyone "runs" to get it!
Why that?
Because, we make the updates, we have the problems so the companies make updates, we don't like the programs so the companies make updates, the reason for the software updates is : WE!!

[ntg]

Customer point of view [Positive] - Maintenance becomes cheaper in the long run. Its tough to find cheap programmers who are skilled in old technologies. So future maintenance becomes easy if the application is upgraded to a later technology.

[Negative] - More cost. If my app is working fine, why should I spend on it to upgrade? Is it really worth the investment? Does upgrading add any value, if the application that was upgraded doesn't contain any new features?

It pretty much works that way for small projects. For medium/large systems, the customer is more reluctant to agree to a major upgrade simply because the vendor wants/needs to change the development framework. The major reason is "why replace it if it works" and "we'd have to do systems/integration/user acceptance testing all over again". Also, in larger systems the customer and the vendor usually have a maintenance contract already in place, so the customer can always point out that they don't care what it takes for the vendor to provide proper support. Trying to muscle the customer to upgrade ("we won't support that release after date x") isn't a good idea and it's always best to talk with the customer and indicate the advantages of an upgrade - that is, the advantages that he's going to benefit from. If there aren't any, tough luck.

Cheers,
NTG

[Valleysboy1978]

Look at MS for a prime example. They were planning on supporting Win95/Win98 no longer but were forced to keep maintaining it because so many customers still use it.
The same is happening with VB6. They are going to stop supporting it to muscle everyone into using VB.NET, however there is a petition that is ongoing to keep support for VB6.

In the end you cannot force the customer to upgrade, but they can force you to upgrade using patches, fixes etc..

[mendhak]

The same is happening with VB6. They are going to stop supporting it to muscle everyone into using VB.NET, however there is a petition that is ongoing to keep support for VB6.

I don't think that petition is going to make much of an impact in influencing a decision change.

[dglienna]

They're going to see that everybody got a free copy, or bought a copy of Net already anyways. Only the people that haven't upgraded should have signed. That would have made more of an impact, I would think. I signed up, but also recieved my copy a few months back. Now, I haven't installed it, yet. Hope I can upgrade to Net 2005 when it comes out.

[Valleysboy1978]

I don't think that petition is going to make much of an impact in influencing a decision change.

I agree, unfortunately.

[DWRoelands]

From the customer's point of view, there's usually only one question when considering an upgrade - "what's in it for me?"

That's a good question, and an appropriate one. While developers and power users will often upgrade for the sake of upgrading, this is usually not the case when you're dealing with a customer who has paid for a medium-to-large-sized solution.

The goal is to make your customers see value in upgrading. If you add a new feature, don't retrofit it to old versions of your product. This gives customers a positive incentive to move forward (as opposed to the threat of withdrawing support, which is a negative incentive).

Communicate with your customers regularly about all the great things you're doing in each new release. If you squished twenty bugs in the newest revision, send out a release notice identifying the issues that were resolved. Chances are that there's some customer out there who's annoyed by bug #235 and would like to upgrade if it will fix the problem.

Most importantly, make the upgrade process as painless as possible. If upgrading knocks your customer offline for 24 hours, they aren't going to want to do it for small incremental releases. If, on the other hand, they can be offline for 30 minutes, they will be much more amenable to upgrades.

Just a few thoughts....

--Duane

[Valleysboy1978]

One thing comes into all customers head - price?
Often they will think that it is not worth the additional price unless the benefits outweigh the price.

Essentially it is best to look as an upgrade as a new product altogether. Then it will be easier to sell

[abhijit]

Essentially it is best to look as an upgrade as a new product altogether. Then it will be easier to sell

thats tough for a new product, the customer will want a whole lot of new features in it. but thats not the case always.

when it comes to customized software it usually becomes tough to convince the customer to see your point of view. for example - an invoice generation system. he says the new system is also going to generate invoices, so how does it matter? These are the kind of questions that i am faced with every hour.