Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.Alfred North Whitehead.
We have indeed come a long way from the times of Edison and Graham Bell, who started the revolution
of making the world a small place. If not for them, you would still be reading this on a papyrus or goatskin at best!
The ever-changing nature of technology is what pushes the boundary of acceptance for us mere mortals. What was standard once, becomes a footnote in the next page of technological evolution.
Take Legacy systems for example. You ask, what are legacy systems? Why are they called legacy?
Simple. A type of technology which has been outdated by something Faster, Smarter, Better (I quote so at the risk of Vodafone suing me!). This is especially true in the IT segment where innovations are the order of the day.
Earlier, we had machines replacing men. Now, we have more efficient machines replacing other, older machines who have not been able to keep up with the times. Having said that, it is not easy for CIOs and IT decision makers to simply scrap their existing platforms every time something new shows its face. This constant cycle of change does tend to weaken the business value of said legacy systems, which have been developed over a lengthy span of time, with considerable investments going into them.
Market research shows that even though cost-effective technology and services are available today, yet nearly 80% of IT operations still rely on legacy technology to get their work done. International Data Corp. estimates that 200 billion lines of legacy code are still in use today on more than 10,000 large mainframe sites. The difficulty in accessing legacy applications is reflected in a December 2001 study by the Hurwitz Group that found only 10% of enterprises have fully integrated their most mission-critical business processes, According to a study done in 2001.
Monolithic legacy architectures are often challenged and superseded by more modern SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) and MDA (Model Driven Architecture) based systems, such as Ameyo. Legacy systems execute business policies and decisions that are hardwired by rigid, predefined process flows, making integration with customer relationship management (CRM) software and Internet-based business applications torturous and sometimes impossible which is where modern technologies have an upper-hand.
In conclusion, Legacy systems are but a major hurdle in the ever-changing world of IT, especially the Contact Centre Industry. The vulnerabilities and complexity of legacy solutions are simply no match to the latest and greatest of IP, VOIP and Cloud based technologies who have slowly but surely claimed their ground and continue to do so. In a world where any technology becomes obsolete in the blink of an eye by something which not only better equipped at handling the same task than any legacy applications, but also is able to churn out results at a much faster and efficient pace, Legacy is a dying and soon to be extinct breed.
