The world has suddenly woken up to realize that Microsoft won’t update its popular Windows XP operating system after April 8. Does that affect the man on the street? Yes, because 95.5 percent of ATMs worldwide are run on Windows XP and thousands of industries use the operating system as upgrades are expensive. Microsoft’s decision means that millions of computers running Windows XP will be open to all kinds of attacks and data theft as the company will not issue updates with bug fixes anymore. Although Microsoft has been warning customers for some time about the impending withdrawal of its support for Windows XP, businesses and banks have delayed an upgrade to reduce cost overruns.
This is a perfect example of modern society being caught in a web of its own where technology is concerned: Upgrade or be doomed. IT companies are forced to come up with technological innovations, however minor, every six months to beat their competitors. Customers, both businesses and individuals, are forced to upgrade. The companies that do not follow the crowd land themselves in the current unenviable situation of those that did not upgrade their Windows operating system. The same is true for individuals. If you don’t own the latest gizmo, chances are you won’t be taken seriously by your peers. People who delay accepting the latest technology run the additional risk of falling far behind the crowd and becoming a “cyber illiterate.”
It is immaterial whether a company or individual requires a technological upgrade. Tech companies will force them to fall in line by simply stop producing spare parts for the old line of products or refusing to update software as in the case of Windows XP. This headlong rush for the latest in technology has led to our desk drawers filling with junk mobile sets bought over the years and companies stretching their budgets. In much of the world old mobile phone sets are not recycled or traded for new ones; they just lie at homes of people, some of whom remain emotionally attached to them. This puts an additional strain on the environment as tiny electronic components in many gadgets contain precious metals.
Tech and electronic giants will keep luring us into buying their latest toys for the simple reason they are answerable to their shareholders, but consumers need to ask themselves at least once before they buy that shiny, sleek gadget on the shop shelf whether it is worth it and how long will it take before it too joins its companions in the dark dungeon of their drawers.
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