Why Do Companies Avoid Upgrading Old Software?

Nikesh Arora says companies avoid upgrading old software because technology leaders are rewarded for low cost and for keeping everything available, so an upgrade risks an outage, user complaints, and more spend.

Cyber security is usually 4% to 10% of the information technology budget, and Nikesh Arora says that share is going to have to go up. Financial services and the federal government sit near 10% because they want systems secure and robust. Companies already on the cloud can land at 4% to 5%, because a hyperscaler covers infrastructure security and the company mainly handles application and software security. He puts the band from 4% to 5% on the low end up to 8% to 10% on the high end.

He compares the fight for money to the years after 9/11. With no new attack, people say the spending is too high, and after 20 years without another 9/11 the people who control the purse refuse more funding. He says a bunch of 9/11-scale events are coming in cyber. The phones already ring every day with leaders asking how to get out of the mess, and the next year or so will be brutal once hacked systems come back online.