Given the rate of change in OS and GUI environments, support libraries, and other APIs, most desktop apps don't work very well for long these days either.
Of course unlike SaS you can always continue to use an old version indefinitely in a VM if it really matters.
But I find the longevity of the vendor is still critical for supporting new environments and API requirements, and in practice I don't end up discounting the going-out-of-business risk much for desktop apps vs. SaS apps.
One of my biggest clients is a financial company whose core trading product is based on a commercial product they bought in the 70's (whose manufacturer subsequently went out of business in the 80's).
It's continued to run for 30 years, and they wouldn't dream of replacing it. I don't think they're an exception (although I suspect this is less true when you get out of the enterprise environment).
I should say here that I too have the 'old version' problem: The software to send samples to my Akai hardware sampler only runs on Windows 98. I have a Windows 98 PC just for this!
Comments
Given the rate of change in OS and GUI environments, support libraries, and other APIs, most desktop apps don't work very well for long these days either.
Of course unlike SaS you can always continue to use an old version indefinitely in a VM if it really matters.
But I find the longevity of the vendor is still critical for supporting new environments and API requirements, and in practice I don't end up discounting the going-out-of-business risk much for desktop apps vs. SaS apps.
One of my biggest clients is a financial company whose core trading product is based on a commercial product they bought in the 70's (whose manufacturer subsequently went out of business in the 80's).
It's continued to run for 30 years, and they wouldn't dream of replacing it. I don't think they're an exception (although I suspect this is less true when you get out of the enterprise environment).
I should say here that I too have the 'old version' problem: The software to send samples to my Akai hardware sampler only runs on Windows 98. I have a Windows 98 PC just for this!
But you can still run it, ultimately proving zandorg's point.
>The software to send samples to my Akai hardware sampler only runs on Windows 98. I have a Windows 98 PC just for this!
Doesn't it run under emulation, like virtualbox, or even in WINE98 or such?
It also runs on a Mac II vx, with System 7 and 32mb of RAM.