According to MarketWatch problems with software applications account for 31% of computer down time and cost U.S. companies about $60 billion per year. Conventional wisdom says that investments in IT improve productivity, but this may not always be the case.

Not only are there the associated problems like those discussed in the MarketWatch article, but there is also the expense of the software itself. The most notorious offender, from my perspective, is the cost associated with running Microsoft Office in a corporation. When I worked for a mid-size company, we had to upgrade Office every few years in order to stay in synch with our customers and this cost $300,000 each time we did it. The motivation was never the additional features available in the latest version of Office; it was always to save us the trouble of incompatibility. In addition to the cost of the software itself, we had the expense of installing and supporting the user base. Support included training, because the latest version undoubtedly changed features just enough that many employees felt they needed additional training in order to use the software.

In one planning session, I asked, "Why are we spending $300,000 on software that people use to write memos? Are their memos going to be better now as a result?" There was no answer, just a general shaking of heads and the silent recognition that we really had no choice in the matter.

Originally published June 15, 2005.