How old is the tech you use at work?

[prairie_girl]

Do you use the latest and greatest technology at work or do you still use typewriters and fax machines?

I use very up to date technology, but the programs are all specific for the company I work for. We do use webex and adobe connect for meetings, but everything else is company specific software.

 

[DisneyHardin]

I'm a teacher and we have up to date technology.

 

[kanerf]

Part of my job is making sure we have the latest versions of software. We upgrade the hardware as well, but less often. I still have a desktop and it is perhaps 5 years old. Do to the nature of my environment, laptops are not allowed and most users have a diskless workstation.

 

[mrodgers]

If you're management reading emails, you get scheduled laptop replacements. If you run equipment using computers, your computer will have to completely die before being replaced even though it hasn't been able to run the software for the last 4 years because it's too slow. At that point, you'll get someone from management's hand-me-down.

 

[luv2cheer92]

We get new computers (desktops and laptops) every 2 years. Fax machines are the norm in the medical field, so not outdated there. It's the best way to send/receive orders or other info from providers.

 

[kdonnel]

I seem to attract jobs where I am supporting old stuff. At my last job I was supporting mission critical servers installed prior to Y2K running software developed in the mid 90's. While I don't have that job anymore, the telephone companies are still running that mission critical application on 25 year old servers.

 

[nene0182]

Our divisions billing and AP system is so ridiculously old. They’ve been talking about changing it since I joined the company 8+ years ago. Our division is a pretty small part of a massive company though so I’m thinking it’ll be another 10+ years until we actually do change. No one seems to be in any hurry and we just keep patching things together.

 

[Christine]

I work for the federal government and, no, we never have the latest. We seem to alwasy be around 5 years behind but beleagured with security that makes it almost impossible to function deftly.

 

[GreatLakes]

The majority of our tech is pretty new but we have some legacy systems we are in the process of leaving but it is a multi-year project. My industry still uses a lot of mainframe software and we don't have any of that still laying around so we are better off than many of our peers.

 

[ronandannette]

New. Our hardware is on a planned-obsolescence cycle and a lot of our software is custom-written and gets updates and patches about ever 15 seconds, it seems. Our Microsoft Office Suite downloads any and all available updates every Thursday night.

 

[tvguy]

TV and radio stations are an odd mix of brand new and ancient technology.

The station I retired from last year had just installed state of the art equipment to run the station remotely from a centralized hub so they could fire all local people needed to operate the station. They can monitor and turn on and off the transmitter, move some of the satellite dishes, and control what is broadcast.
On the flip side, all broadcasters are part of the Emergency Alert System, formerly known as the Emergency Broadcast system. Those annoying tests you see on TV and hear on the radio with tones (THIS IS A TEST OF THE EMERGENCY ALERT SYSTEM, THIS IS ONLY A TEST) that are done every Tuesday. That system was put together in 1963, and the alerts (and tests) are all transmitted over AM radio frequencies. I think the AM radio receivers we had dated to 1963.

 

[tvguy]

I seem to attract jobs where I am supporting old stuff. At my last job I was supporting mission critical servers installed prior to Y2K running software developed in the mid 90's. While I don't have that job anymore, the telephone companies are still running that mission critical application on 25 year old servers.

My son is in computer IT. He works for a public agency now, but he worked the Help Desk for a Private IT contractor before. They had a client running a property management company off computers running Windows 98SE on a computer with a 486 chip. My son asked his boss why they hadn't pitched an upgrade to the guy. They had. The client pointed out that a new system wouldn't make any improvement in his work flow, so he wasn't spending anything until he had to. My son's boss also pointed out, this was one of their most profitable clients because other than a few printer issues, he never had hardware of software issued that require a service call.

 

[MillauFr]

Disney doesn't have the latest tech. Buzz Lightyear runs off a computer with Windows 95.

 

[RogueX]

I work for the federal government and, no, we never have the latest. We seem to alwasy be around 5 years behind but beleagured with security that makes it almost impossible to function deftly.

I feel your pain, I work for the federal gvt too and you couldn't have said it better.