Devil's Advocate: Throw away culture

IT products often need ongoing support, so is it right for manufacturers to concentrate on what's coming up next? Or is that we're simply comfortable with the rate of replacement in the industry, asks Martin Brampton...

If you are running Windows 95 or NT 3.51, you are seriously behind the times. Neither has any form of support now, so if you get into trouble, you are on your own. Yet these are hardly ancient products by many standards. Does it really make sense for us to throw away technology so quickly?

It hardly seems long since Windows 95 was the biggest software launch ever seen. People queued up outside computer stores to buy a copy at the stroke of midnight. Nobody had ever seen anything like it. It rapidly became the desktop standard for the vast majority of commercial users. But now all the excitement is long gone and the software is in the technology dustbin.

NT 3.51 was not so high profile but it was an important piece of software, being in reality NT version one. Microsoft claimed it would be less confusing if NT was given a number that roughly matched up with the then current versions of the basic Windows system. Perhaps we should mourn NT4 rather more. It became highly robust with the later service packs but it will not be long before it too has all support withdrawn.

In other sectors, even those involving technology, things last longer. Travelling between London and Yorkshire, most of the trains are the electric 225 models, with a sprinkling of the older diesel HST 125s. Before too many more years have passed, the HST units will have to be retired with the more modern electric trains not so far behind. These are reasonably modern units but, in the railway context, that means only a few decades old. The irony is that it will be difficult to buy new trains that are as good.

Or think of the London buses. For many people, the 40-year-old Routemaster double deckers still offer the best service. They give a smoother ride, offer more legroom and, with conductors, often make better progress than the supposedly more modern buses.

In IT, decades are an eternity. Perhaps there is little need to worry about software being thrown away. After all, if people can think up new software, there is no waste disposal problem involved in scrapping the old and adopting the new. Unfortunately, hardware becomes obsolete quite as fast, and indeed its obsolescence is significantly driven by changes in the efficiency of software.

Minor feature enhancements are added to software, even if they increase the hardware demands quite out of proportion to the benefits obtained. It is assumed that the hardware resource will be there anyway, with new processors becoming available all the time. Performance constantly increases by leaps and bounds, although this is largely imperceptible to the user, as all the extra power seems to be absorbed by software overheads.

Nor is IT the clean, environmentally friendly business it might seem at a superficial glance. Old computer equipment is being discarded at a phenomenal rate, and has become a significant part of an unmanageable amount of landfill. Many components include toxic materials that are not easily recovered or safely extracted. And very large quantities of clean water are needed in the manufacture of circuit boards.

Particularly disgraceful is the supposed recycling of equipment through export to so-called developing countries. This typically involves poor people engaging in hazardous destruction operations that create large quantities of decidedly unpleasant waste which is just abandoned. Rich countries claim to have clean hands but only at the price of dumping nasty rubbish on poorer ones.

Perhaps it is a feature of our economic system that nobody can afford to step off the treadmill of constant modernisation. Yet somehow we will have to come to terms with the fact that if we destroy the global environment, the economic gains we treasure will ultimately be lost. And maybe we should spare a thought for the unfortunates who have to live with our rubbish.

** Martin Brampton is a director and founder of Black Sheep Research (www.black-sheep-research.co.uk ), an independent consultancy providing research, writing and speaking services on a wide range of business and technology subjects. Martin was previously a director at Bloor Research, and has worked with IT as a user and analyst for over 20 years. He can be contacted at silicon@black-sheep-research.co.uk.

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