Opinion piece: Financing Software and (planned) obsolescence

Planned obsolescence is an actual thing... A very annoying, polluting, and costly thing... A thing that every 21st century consumer has experienced in his/her life: bulbs that burn out after a certain time, tights that constantly rip and laundry machines that stop working just after the expiry of their warranty... Aaaargh! Let’s take the example of laundry machines: • Was the laundry less clean 10 years ago because of inefficient machines? Nope! • Did laundry machines use more water and electricity back then? Absolutely! • To the point that buying a new machine would more than compensate the pollution caused by throwing away what should be a perfectly functioning machine? I don’ think I need to answer that...

What about planned obsolescence in tech?

If planned obsolescence was invented for light bulbs, tech has mastered it! Batteries die, operating systems can suddenly no longer be upgraded. And the most annoying of all, printer cartridges which are disabled before being empty! But in truth, obsolescence is a fact of life. The problem is not that old things age, break, no longer work... The problem is the “planned” aspect of it. Because the technology is evolving so rapidly, objects will become obsolete themselves, rapidly, whether you like it or not. Try using an iPhone 3G when 4G is available everywhere. You will probably not enjoy the experience, and this will have little to do with planned obsolescence. Tech companies certainly encourage us to change our devices more often than what the preservation of rare resources commands. But when it comes to tech, the impacts of obsolescence may not be as overwhelmingly negative, as they also entail a significantly improved user experience.

Is there planned obsolescence in Financing Software?

At this point you may wonder what the point of this article is and why it is in Basikon’s blog. Well, at Basikon, we total over a hundred years of experience in Financing software, and we have become experts in lending and leasing software, innovation in lending and leasing, and all the thingamajig that goes with it. During those years:

1. we have seen many people genuinely happy to display the object of Steve Jobs latest keynote, or Apple, Microsoft or HP’s latest toy.
2. Many times, we have listened to the same people explaining to us, that it did not make sense for them to replace their 30- or 40-year old Information System.
3. Quite often as well, we have been told that digital transformation can indeed rely on systems that existed before Google (on long days, the 472.000.000 results in Google for “Digital Transformation” just seem too ironic).

Well, you know what? True digital transformation, the one that shakes up business models, revolutionizes customer experience, brings company-consumer symbiosis does not happen with superficial changes in business process or software. This is Basikon’s raison d’être.