Is long-term partnerships with software manufacturers a purchasing criterion?

Will the software company still exist in 10 or 20 years and will the customer still be able to work with the software then?

A question that is often on the minds of buyers: How long-term is the purchase I am currently considering?

When purchasing new software, in addition to useful support, cost-benefit ratio, and service options, questions are often considered that don't always have an answer. One of these is the very frequently asked question "Will the company or the software still exist in ten years?" or "Will this ensure a long-term business relationship?" These customers have usually never heard of so-called "software obsolescence."

Sales usually has "nice-sounding answers" to such questions

These questions are often refuted, especially in sales, with many good-sounding answers and explanations.

Large companies like to use the number of their employees or the distribution of their software as an argument for long-term cooperation

Large companies that operate worldwide advertise their software and services. They like to emphasize the number of employees behind the product, the sales figures of the company that manufactures and/or distributes the product or even the number of years the manufacturer has been on the market, as if all of this or one or the other of these were a valid argument that a decades-long commitment can be guaranteed.

However, business management theory speaks of software deployment times of approximately five to ten years

The average software lifespan is five to ten years (for example, according to Hargraves from "Strategic Planning for Technical IT" of the author Wolfgang Lindheim).

Science has been dealing with the phenomenon of so-called software aging since at least the 1990s

Even if all the promises made by the sales department were kept, despite the promised economic components aimed at long-term sustainability (many customers, large global company, economically stable situation of the company, no sale of the software company, etc.), the phenomenon of so-called software aging would strike over the years.

You can recognize software aging by the following characteristics (see also the following Articles with references from the science of Wiebke Kappenberg, Paul Drews)

• Resource consumption - With old software, the resource consumption (especially memory consumption).
• Availability - The Probability of failure increases due to errors and the Availability the software decreases.
• Errors - Over time, frequent changes cause more Error, such as arithmetic rounding errors or system errors.
• Performance - The Performance decreases over time because, for example, the memory is not released correctly.
• Response time - Due to increasing program complexity, Responses take longer and be faulty.
• Software quality - The Software quality (Functionality, reliability, efficiency, maintainability, portability) decreases over time due to frequent and inconsistent changes.

In short: Even if the basic prerequisite for a "suspicion" of long-term deployment is met...

...this is still a question that cannot be answered reliably and seriously. Even if a software vendor has been active in the market for several years and has a certain number of validated, reputable references, it is still a challenge to answer such a question reliably.

No matter what arguments you hear from various software vendors, every one can be refuted. There's a lot happening in the market that isn't mentioned in the arguments about software aging:

Large manufacturers buy small manufacturers. When small manufacturers are acquired, there is no guarantee that their current developments will continue.

Small manufacturers are giving up the business and cannot find interested companies to continue it.

Companies are changing their previous paths and developing their products in directions that customers do not necessarily want to follow.

Once excellent and perfectly suited software simply becomes outdated and can no longer recognize or implement modern requirements – whether technical or content-related. Sometimes manufacturers also fail to keep up with market developments.

In conclusion, the question of long-term cooperation can never be answered correctly.

But what can you do if you want to ensure the long-term use of a software as much as possible?

Request the source code and deposit it with a notary for your own use in case a software manufacturer is unable to develop it further.

Document your software processes and procedures so that they can be more easily incorporated into new software if necessary.

Ask how many customers the manufacturer has and take the time to call the manufacturer's references.

Check how long the manufacturer has been on the market. While this doesn't predict what will happen tomorrow, it does provide an indication of the company's longevity to date.

Back up your data regularly in a format that would be easy for other third parties to process.

By consciously looking to the future, companies can still take precautions, but should always remain open to new things

Once you've taken all the steps to best prepare you for the future, be prepared for the fact that you may not be using the same software for decades. And stop asking yourself whether a software vendor will still be your software vendor in 10 or 20 years. Only time will tell you that question. It's also not always desirable to stick with the same software vendor at all costs.

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Introduction of new software and replacement of existing systems

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