FatMax Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 LicenseCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License Upgrading Software

FatMax Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 LicenseCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License Introduction New software versions are released every few years by many software manufacturers Version numbers (or years) are used to distinguish the versions Major revisions usually labelled as integers Minor changes usually labelled as decimals Check your version number Usually found under Help>About on Windows software

FatMax Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 LicenseCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License Pros/Cons Upgrades will usually offer new functions or will be designed to make tasks easier Word 2007 puts 80% of the commonest used functions no more than two clicks away from the user after criticism that Word 2003 had too many functions (“improved” UI) However there are technical and human considerations that the organisation needs to take into account when upgrading software

FatMax Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 LicenseCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License The new software may require more memory, a faster processor etc. This means that hardware needs to be upgraded (often at great expense) Windows version ProcessorMemoryHard disk Windows 9525 MHz8 MB~50 MB Windows 9866 MHz24 MB MB Windows Millennium150 MHz32 MB320 MB Windows XP300 MHz128 MB1.5 GB Windows Vista1 GHz1.0 GB15 GB Hardware Constraints

FatMax Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 LicenseCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License Compatibility The upgraded software needs to be compatible with existing systems. New versions of the software will usually open files created in older versions – backwards compatibility The reverse isn’t always true i.e. files created in new versions may not be usable (directly) with earlier versions – downwards compatibility 

FatMax Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 LicenseCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License Scale of upgrade Organisations need to decide whether to upgrade some or all of their software at one time Upgrade all No compatibility problems  Cost issue -Licences -Hardware upgrades Upgrade some Cheaper  Potential compatibility problems Whichever option it chooses there may be some disruption associated with the changeover

FatMax Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 LicenseCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License Training Upgraded software will have new features and possibly a new UI that users have to be trained to use Organisations may also have to rewrite existing support resources (e.g. user guides)

FatMax Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 LicenseCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License Need? Based on previous slides the organisation has to ask itself “Do we really need the new software?” The technical and human constraints need to be weighed up against any potential new features/benefits the upgrade offers

FatMax Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 LicenseCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License Extension Tasks Read and make notes on the following presentation Answer this question: “Give two technical and two human reasons why an organisation may choose to delay deploying software upgrades”