The Disadvantages of Migrating Software
If you are thinking of migrating your organization to a new software product, you should carefully consider some of the potential drawbacks. Migrating to a new type of software is a major endeavor that cannot typically be completed in a single weekend. By learning about the disadvantages of software migration, you will be able to weigh them against the benefits to come up with the best possible solution.
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Implementation
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It can cost a lot of money to plan a migration from one software product to another. Whether you have a consultant plan the migration for you, or have an employee draft an implementation plan, you are looking at dozens or even hundreds of hours of labor. Once the implementation method is identified and a plan drawn up, the actual migration may go according to plan, or it may not. You will face even larger expenses if you have to change your implementation plan midway through. Not only will this require more labor hours, you will also have a greater organizational downtime because employees will be between software products.
Learning Curve
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An organization cannot return to its peak efficiency until every member of its staff becomes proficient in the new software. You can combat this by training your staff on the software before migrating, but this can be time-consuming if you have not yet deployed it on a large scale. Staff will likely not become skilled at using the new software until they can use it on a regular basis at their own workstations.
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Potential Bugs
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New software is more likely to have undiscovered bugs in its code than tried and true software. If you migrate, you may have to contend with unexpected errors that may not get resolved until the software vendor releases an update or patch. Be wary of migrating to a beta version of software because it may offer more features at a lower cost. The discount is provided to you with the expectation that you will be more willing to deal with bugs.
Cost
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Removing a software product from an entire organization and replacing it with another is very expensive. Not only is there the upfront cost of the new software to consider, but you must also consider the amount of money that you have already invested in the old software. You must take into account the number of man-hours required to deploy and test the new product. Keep in mind that you will not know how the software will behave on a mass scale until it is deployed.
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