I was reading a review of smart phones the other day and had to comment on a topic that comes up frequently in technology…old technology. You all know that my philosophy is 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. Too often, I think companies roll out upgrades simply for the sake of upgrading when their original product functioned perfectly. Think about products like Norton AntiVirus, Microsoft Word, McAfee, Acrobat Reader, and others that hit a peak of performance and features about six or seven years ago and did their jobs well. After that, the company's programmers (maybe pushed by managers) continued to roll out product after product with very little extra functionality, but an awful lot of extra junk that was not needed nor is it used. All leading to products that slowed down computers and didn't increase efficiency in any way.
I still think that we are in the infancy of the technology age and many products and technologies need to be continually pushed and improved, but sometimes products perform all the needed functions and need not be over laden with the extra weight of unnecessary code. Microsoft Word worked great in the 1997 version and no appreciable improvement has been made in the latest four upgrades. Instead, the product has become slower and more prone to crashes since the '97 version. The same can be said for the other products that I mentioned earlier.
The article I was reading talked about the Palm operating system, found in Palm handheld organizers and Treo smart phones, being old and having not been updated in nearly four years. Gasp! I can honestly say that after using the PocketPC/Mobile Windows smart phones that come out with new versions almost every six months, the Palm based smart phones are more usable, functional, efficient, user friendly, and smart than any of the other smart phones. Why? Because Palm developed an incredibly intuitive system that works and works well without any hassle. It's easy to learn, maintain, and grow with as needs increase. I never look at my trusty Treo 650 and say, "If only the Palm operating system did…."
Let me compare technology to a mouse trap. I contend (and sales figures agree) that the spring loaded mouse trap with peanut butter, seeds, or cheese catch more mice than any new fangled mouse trap that is on the market. Once a product has proven its worth, don't try to improve on near perfection. Put energies into developing other technologies to assist and enhance what we already have, not replace it for the sake of replacing it.
