Planned Obsolescence - Planned Obsolescence in Software

Planned Obsolescence in Software

Software companies are sometimes thought to deliberately drop support for older technologies as a calculated attempt to force users to purchase new products to replace those made obsolete. Most proprietary software will ultimately reach an end-of-life point, at which the manufacturer will cease updates and support. As open source software can always be updated and maintained by the end user, the user is not at the sole mercy of a proprietary vendor.

It may sometimes be economically infeasible to offer perpetual support for software. This especially applies to network-related software, where continued development work may be necessary to close new entry points for malicious attackers and malicious software. Covering these costs would either require a continual maintenance fee or a much higher upfront cost. Thus network-related software may reach an actual end-of-life, where support has been withdrawn from the provider and continued use of the software would yield an unacceptable security risk to the customer.